Love notes from Hades

Learning how to be dead, forgetting how to remember, listening to lectures from the grumpy stones — these are a few of my favorite things to do in Hades, in Sarah Ruhl’s funny, poetic, and oddly haunting “Eurydice.” There’s something in this old Greek myth for everyone, and Ms. Ruhl, with her well-known flair for the unusual, seizes multiple points of view.

Poets and playwrights from Byron to Tennessee Williams have found inspiration in the story of Orpheus, magical music man, and his beloved Eurydice. Determined to bring his bride back from Hades after a premature death, Orpheus loses her a second time when he turns to look at her before she emerges into the sun. That heartbreaking loss becomes more poignant with the simple impatience that caused it.

In “Eurydice” the focus is elsewhere. Two young lovers, soon to be married, frolic like colts on a beach. Sara Eshleman and Eamon Hyland radiate all those things that make us smile — passionate devotion, wild promises and hopes. Deep in the underworld, Eurydice’s father, (Bill LeSueur) aware of the coming nuptials, talks to his daughter, even mimes his walk with her down the aisle. He has not been dipped long enough in the River Lethe; he still has memory of life.

When Eurydice wanders into the clutches of a “Nasty, Interesting Man,” (Ray Nedzel), it isn’t long before she, too, is crossing the river to enter the underworld. (Note to self: Avoid Nasty, Interesting Men!) Orpheus, meanwhile, plays music as he grieves and writes love letters to be carried below on the backs of worms.

Director Bree Luck has given free rein to the natural weirdness of the script and taken full advantage of her cast. Ray Nedzel, who plays both the Nasty, Interesting Man and the Lord of the Underworld, has the spectacularly menacing countenance of an escapee from Clockwork Orange, a fact made larger by the immediate closeness of the audience in Live Arts’ intimate black box.

Three irritable stones, a big one (Donald Gaylord), a little one (Denise Stewart) and a loud one (Jen Downey) make their sardonic observations in unison, and in spite of their cold, critical natures, can’t help but add to the surrealistic humor.

Bill LeSueur, meanwhile, has been mined for his remote charm and innocent sense of wonder. When Eurydice arrives in Hades with her empty suitcase expecting a room, preferably with room service, her father spends many quiet minutes roping off a tiny area to call her own. The unhurried love behind this act is unexpectedly touching.

Grady Smith’s simple set design consists mainly of a cavern-like entrance and a central platform of rocks and logs in the muddy grays one might expect to find where the sun never shines. Keith Kirssin’s delicate dripping water and nuanced sound along with Heather Hutton’s lighting, which clearly separates scenes above and below ground, intensify the effect.

The beauty of the myth is the love that drove Orpheus to descend into Hades to bring back Eurydice. But this is Ms. Ruhl’s story, so we can’t depend upon tradition. Orpheus does indeed conquer the guards with his music and makes the long walk back to the entrance. But how and why he lost his bride a second time has a new spin, one that I won’t divulge here. Let it merely be noted that instead of leaving Orpheus to grieve eternally after his second loss, the story follows him to his natural return to the underworld.

This very capable production is not about answers, morals, or tidy endings. It does, however, offer “next page” possibilities, that is, the next page after the very last one. That’s where we learn that one of the lesser acknowledged sorrows of death is in the forgetfulness that the dead have for the living, where the Lord of the Underworld and the Stones watch for any signs of remembrance and cure them with a walk in the river.

Margaret Lawrence is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association. She teaches drama at CCHS.

Want to go?

What: “Eurydice” by Sarah Ruhl
Where: Live Arts
Charlottesville
Call:  (434) 977-4177
Playing through June 27