Eurydice is a very special play in terms of dramaturgy. There are things that you have to look at and say, okay, this matters, this piece of information needs to communicate to the audience, and there are others that you just have to pass and say, this is interesting but it is not very supplemental to the performance. Eurydice is a wonderful play but it is hard to place it in the world of dramaturgy. It has no solid time or place. A setting would be up to the discretion of the director and designers. So as a dramaturg, you’ve just be on standby.
The real dramaturgy kicks in, I think, when you begin to research the original myth of Orpheus. I think it is one of the most important things to communicate to the audience. If they do not know that this is a modern day retelling of a Greek myth, they might think it is shallow and pointless, that it is just some fictional love story that some writer won a huge award for. When that is not the case at all.
Something that is terribly important to me about Eurydice is that people (audience members) are able to make every connection Ruhl set up in her genius script. The River Lethe is The River of Forgetfulness and the terrifying hound that guards the gates are three comic Stones who just gripe at everyone.
These findings are there waiting to be discovered and brought to the table for discussion. To help our audience not only make the connections, but actually educate them while they make the connections. We want them to enjoy watching this show, and not miss references that are made from the original myth.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Producing the Play Statement
Production Problems Posed by the Text
Eurydice is a wonderfully colorful script. There are so many things that the text gives you, in your head. The real challenge is materializing these awesome envisions. In the opening of the play, Orpheus showers Eurydice in a series of gifts including, all the birds in the sky, the ocean, and the moon and the stars. The dilemma we face with this is it is all done with no speaking accept Eurydice saying “thank you” after each gift is given. The second dilemma posed in the text is Orpheus’ music. The following problem is the use of a water pump in the play. How will it be incorporated to make sense? Will there be a modern water dispenser, or a pre-plumbing crank-it-with-all-your-might water pump? Alas, there are still problems bigger than these. Eurydice tumbles down a flight of 600 steps (stairs to be more clear). The script describes this as if it is actually happening on stage. It is hard to determine whether this would work, or not. After the tumble the problem becomes more extreme. How will Orpheus’ plan to travel to the underworld work on stage? Perhaps a lighting trick or a drop stage? What about Orpheus and Eurydice’s ascent back up to the regular world? How will that long journey work on stage? These are all questions that must be addressed upon wanting to produce this show.
Production Problems Posed by the Context
If we did Eurydice at Sam Houston State University, we would without a doubt run into serious questions about how we would configure the set on our stage. Assembling an Alice in Wonderland version of the underworld would be no problem for our designers, but a raining elevator would be tough. Overall, I believe Eurydice is a great piece for our university. We have talented and innovated professors and students that could take the challenge of this show on with no problem. Out of the list of a raining elevator, a strategically placed water pump, a flight of 600 stairs, Orpheus’s fabulous music, gifts of all the birds in the sky and walking in the ocean. I think that the only challenge for our institution would be the raining elevator.
Another area that we always have to question is the costumes. Luckily, Sarah Ruhl made a play ground for designers. With our great costume team, creating a theme for this show would not only be easy, but it can work on any sort of budget.
Eurydice is also a great script for SHSU because it can appeal to every audience. It can also be made as diverse as the production team would like it to be. Overall this is a great play for our institution and many others.
Other Production Solutions
Upon researching other major productions of Eurydice, I believe I only found five or six productions that really had substantial information. It was interesting how each of these productions concocted their own solutions for the various problems that they faced in producing this show. The Victory Gardens Theatre made their raining elevator with a cage bottom that leads into an area that can collect all of the rain. Then at the Roundhouse Theatre, the set design consisted of using a trap door for various scenes incorporating it fully into the entire production is seemed like. As I stated before, the only problem we may face at SHSU would be the raining elevator, which seems to be an easy project for talented set designers.
Critical Response
In the reviews I read about the few productions produced, I read the same thing over and over again. My favorite review was from the Angry White Guy in Chicago. He said it best when he wrote you’ll either love her work or hate it. He, whose name I have not quite landed on yet is a young professional actor himself. He loved the script and the performance he saw. He appreciated it so much that he left a $20 donation.
After winning the MacArthur Fellow for Eurydice, I doubt there are going to be many critics negatively judging her work, (but I could be wrong). I honestly did not find a review that bashed the script Ruhl’s Eurydice. I did however find reviews that bashed performances of Eurydice. The ACT theatre’s production faced pretty rude remarks about design choices and casting.
The only way I thing that it possible for someone to hate this script is by not knowing the original myth of Orpheus. It is not until then that viewers can get the full Ruhl experience.
Eurydice is a wonderfully colorful script. There are so many things that the text gives you, in your head. The real challenge is materializing these awesome envisions. In the opening of the play, Orpheus showers Eurydice in a series of gifts including, all the birds in the sky, the ocean, and the moon and the stars. The dilemma we face with this is it is all done with no speaking accept Eurydice saying “thank you” after each gift is given. The second dilemma posed in the text is Orpheus’ music. The following problem is the use of a water pump in the play. How will it be incorporated to make sense? Will there be a modern water dispenser, or a pre-plumbing crank-it-with-all-your-might water pump? Alas, there are still problems bigger than these. Eurydice tumbles down a flight of 600 steps (stairs to be more clear). The script describes this as if it is actually happening on stage. It is hard to determine whether this would work, or not. After the tumble the problem becomes more extreme. How will Orpheus’ plan to travel to the underworld work on stage? Perhaps a lighting trick or a drop stage? What about Orpheus and Eurydice’s ascent back up to the regular world? How will that long journey work on stage? These are all questions that must be addressed upon wanting to produce this show.
Production Problems Posed by the Context
If we did Eurydice at Sam Houston State University, we would without a doubt run into serious questions about how we would configure the set on our stage. Assembling an Alice in Wonderland version of the underworld would be no problem for our designers, but a raining elevator would be tough. Overall, I believe Eurydice is a great piece for our university. We have talented and innovated professors and students that could take the challenge of this show on with no problem. Out of the list of a raining elevator, a strategically placed water pump, a flight of 600 stairs, Orpheus’s fabulous music, gifts of all the birds in the sky and walking in the ocean. I think that the only challenge for our institution would be the raining elevator.
Another area that we always have to question is the costumes. Luckily, Sarah Ruhl made a play ground for designers. With our great costume team, creating a theme for this show would not only be easy, but it can work on any sort of budget.
Eurydice is also a great script for SHSU because it can appeal to every audience. It can also be made as diverse as the production team would like it to be. Overall this is a great play for our institution and many others.
Other Production Solutions
Upon researching other major productions of Eurydice, I believe I only found five or six productions that really had substantial information. It was interesting how each of these productions concocted their own solutions for the various problems that they faced in producing this show. The Victory Gardens Theatre made their raining elevator with a cage bottom that leads into an area that can collect all of the rain. Then at the Roundhouse Theatre, the set design consisted of using a trap door for various scenes incorporating it fully into the entire production is seemed like. As I stated before, the only problem we may face at SHSU would be the raining elevator, which seems to be an easy project for talented set designers.
Critical Response
In the reviews I read about the few productions produced, I read the same thing over and over again. My favorite review was from the Angry White Guy in Chicago. He said it best when he wrote you’ll either love her work or hate it. He, whose name I have not quite landed on yet is a young professional actor himself. He loved the script and the performance he saw. He appreciated it so much that he left a $20 donation.
After winning the MacArthur Fellow for Eurydice, I doubt there are going to be many critics negatively judging her work, (but I could be wrong). I honestly did not find a review that bashed the script Ruhl’s Eurydice. I did however find reviews that bashed performances of Eurydice. The ACT theatre’s production faced pretty rude remarks about design choices and casting.
The only way I thing that it possible for someone to hate this script is by not knowing the original myth of Orpheus. It is not until then that viewers can get the full Ruhl experience.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
ACT Theate
Venue: Act Theatre
Location: Seattle, Washington
Time: September 5-October 5, 2008
Director: Allison Narver
Set Designer: Matthew Smucker
Lighting Designer: Michael Wellborn
Narver and her excellent production team realize the theatrical potential of the play with an ever-shifting visual and sound scape.
Matthew Smucker's set evokes Eurydice's world (above and below) as an empty swimming pool with tiled floor, rusting metal drain and diving board (where some pivotal action occurs). Michael Wellborn's terrific lighting expands and multiplies the spatial possibilities. And Chris Walker deserves much credit for a sound design that changes moods with the plucking of a long lyre string, some spare and lyrical piano music, a big-band version of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" and some very ominous synthesizer.
Misha Burton, Seattle Times
September 13, 2008
Location: Seattle, Washington
Time: September 5-October 5, 2008
Director: Allison Narver
Set Designer: Matthew Smucker
Lighting Designer: Michael Wellborn
Narver and her excellent production team realize the theatrical potential of the play with an ever-shifting visual and sound scape.
Matthew Smucker's set evokes Eurydice's world (above and below) as an empty swimming pool with tiled floor, rusting metal drain and diving board (where some pivotal action occurs). Michael Wellborn's terrific lighting expands and multiplies the spatial possibilities. And Chris Walker deserves much credit for a sound design that changes moods with the plucking of a long lyre string, some spare and lyrical piano music, a big-band version of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" and some very ominous synthesizer.
Misha Burton, Seattle Times
September 13, 2008
Victory Gardens Theatre
Venue: Victory Gardens Theatre
Location: Chicago, IL
Time: August 2008
Director: Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus
Set Designer: Daniel Ostling
Lighting Designer: JR Lederle
Location: Chicago, IL
Time: August 2008
Director: Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus
Set Designer: Daniel Ostling
Lighting Designer: JR Lederle
But her tendency to write in deliberately elusive, falsely ethereal metaphors (“Your hair will be my orchestra and…I love you”) while letting directors and designers fill in the blanks is a gamble she loses this time. With the exception of Dan Ostling’s striking water-stained walls, nothing in Shinner and Thebus’s weirdly unemotional production—it’s mostly just Stark reciting sophomoric poetry, a little trickling rain and some helium balloons—can convince us that Ruhl’s 80-minute play comes from a place of unique theatricality.Christopher Piatt, Time Out Chicago, October 23, 2008
The production was spot on. The set and lighting design was simply beautiful to see and had a sort of calming effect on the senses. Minimalist in design, each piece of furniture, balloon, or piece of string seemed to perfectly fit in Shinner and Thebus's picture. The lighting used huge, vast shadows to communicate secondary layers of action. The sound design was absolutely crystalline and pitch perfect. The performances were very strong (especially Joe D. Lauck as Eurydice's father - a construct created by Ruhl to add motivation to the Wicked-style, "let's see this story from her angle" approach) and it in no way seemed a preview. The cats at Victory Gardens have their shit together and Skinner, Thebus and company are at the top of their game. http://donhall.blogspot.com/2008/10/review-eurydice.html
Roundhouse Theatre
Venue: Roundhouse Theatre
Location: Bethesda, MD
Time: February 4-March 3, 2009
Director: Derek Goldman
Set Designer: Clint Ramos and Robbie Hayes
Costume Designer: Kathleen Geldard
The Stones make equally expressive use of movement -- now simian, now dancelike. In notes to her script, Ruhl...compares the Stones to "nasty children." Goldman and costume designer Kathleen Geldard have taken this notion in an eye-catching direction, dressing the trio in candy-colored motley, with patterned stockings and punk-tinted hair, and a flouncy dress for the Loud Stone. The three resemble bratty dolls come to life.
Location: Bethesda, MD
Time: February 4-March 3, 2009
Director: Derek Goldman
Set Designer: Clint Ramos and Robbie Hayes
Costume Designer: Kathleen Geldard
The Stones make equally expressive use of movement -- now simian, now dancelike. In notes to her script, Ruhl...compares the Stones to "nasty children." Goldman and costume designer Kathleen Geldard have taken this notion in an eye-catching direction, dressing the trio in candy-colored motley, with patterned stockings and punk-tinted hair, and a flouncy dress for the Loud Stone. The three resemble bratty dolls come to life.
Ruhl once postulated that "Eurydice" could be "a playground for designers," and that is certainly the case here. Set designer Clint Ramos provides a bleak interlacing of ladders and scaffolding that hints at the dizzying distance between life and the Stygian kingdom. An elevator, smack in the middle, supplies one of the production's many shiver-inducing coups de theatre. Colin K. Bills chips in with menacing shadows, eddying rivulets of brightness and other artful lighting touches.
By Celia Wren
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, February 13, 2009
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