Eurydice

Eurydice
By Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Luke Kerridge. Red Stitch Actors Theatre, St Kilda (Vic). Sept 3rd – Oct 4th, 2014.

Director Luke Kerridge’s enchanting vision, plus some beautiful acting (as we expect) can’t quite dispel the enigma of Ruhl’s play about love and loss. It is both exquisitely naïve and yet indulgently pretentious; seemingly simplistic and yet deeply touching. The beautiful prose borders on the poetic and touches the soul, yet leaves the mind with little to ponder.

We all know the Orpheus and Eurydice story, and generally it focuses on Orpheus and his quest to recover his soulmate. Ruhl dismisses Orpheus as being merely a writer’s device and instead focuses on Eurydice’s quest to find her dead father in the Underworld…it’s her way of dealing with the death of her own father. Ultimately Eurydice stays with her father, seemingly unable to love Orpheus on any kind of adult level. And yet, the one question it raises is why someone, faced with a choice, would choose the past over the future, would choose to stay in Hell….albeit a happy underworld …rather than the real world where she is loved?

Kerridge creates for us an ‘other world’ in which reality and fantasy don’t so much clash as blur into each other. He allows breathing space and moments of delicate and delicious stillness. Some moments are so still, with only the three Stones (the Greek Chorus)  moving silently in slow motion, that we catch our breath and dare not move. It’s brave direction of a clear journey for both himself and his cast. He is more than aided by his technical crew. Emily Collett’s multi levelled set, with it’s various platforms suspended above real water, is quite breathtaking…the creation of a “room” (there are no ‘rooms’ in hell, yet Eurydice craves privacy) from unravelling balls of string from the roof is quite magical, and Kerridge uses the design so imaginatively that we believe completely in this underworld. Claire Springett and Ian Moorhead (lighting and sound respectively) totally share the vision so that the combination is both perfect and seamless.

The cast is superb (when have we ever had less from Red Stitch?).  Ngaire Dawn Fair is a delight as Eurydice. A child/woman, both in love and in pain over two men, Orpheus and her father, her Eurydice is both innocently romantic and knowingly coquettish, and ultimately shallow. Much is made in the first scene of Orpheus teaching her his song, his new melody, and yet she remembers only one note later. Her scenes with the superb Alex Menglet (Father), an actor who just gets better with every outing, are quite marvellous.

Menglet seems to have the ability to re-invent language, to give new emphasis to words so that no other word could possibly do. But it is in the moments when he is silent, creating a room or floating a letter in the waters of the Styx, that he captures us completely. He is a fine actor and a charismatic presence.

Jonathan Peck is Red Stitch’s graduate actor this year in just his second production with the company. He embodies this contemporary Orpheus with sensitivity and creativity. He’s astonishingly graceful with the long fingers of a musician and the body of a mime artist which he uses to perfection. It is just a shame there is not more depth in the text for him to play with, but he’s one of those actors you swiftly put on your ‘must see’ list.

Dion Mills, in both his incarnations of ‘The Dark Lord’, is charismatic and, as the childlike Lord of the Underworld in his colourful plastic boat and cardboard crown manages to be endearing as he repels us. He’s a compelling actor and a valuable asset to the Red Stitch ensemble. As the three Stones, Loud, Big and Small, Olka Makeeva, Sam Duncan and Alexandra Aldrich are more than just a Greek Chorus. Each has found their own idiosyncratic character and their tableaux in repose are quite stunning.

So much is astonishing about this production that I’m not sure why the play itself ultimately disappointed me. There’s a line in the play that says “Inside his head there is always something more beautiful” and perhaps, for me, the text didn’t reach quite deep enough. Nevertheless, this is beautiful theatre.

Coral Drouyn

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