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.