Theatre review: Eurydice

How to tell an unconventional Eurydice story all the way to the end without Netflix cancelling it? Stella Powell-Jones' answer is of course to stick to the stage, and revive Sarah Ruhl's 2003 version of the Greek myth that sees it through the eyes of its doomed heroine. Eurydice (Eve Ponsonby) is in love with Orpheus (Keaton Guimarães-Tolley,) but their happy wedding party is overshadowed by the fact that her late father can't be there. But since he died her Father (Dickon Tyrrell) has been writing her letters from the Underworld, and on the wedding night a Nasty Interesting Man (Joe Wiltshire Smith) arrives promising to let her read one. It's of course a trap, and Eurydice is reunited with her father in the land of the dead much sooner than expected. And while the dead are meant to forget their lives, father and daughter together manage to remember, and rebuild their relationship.

But this is meant to be an epic love story, and unbeknownst to them Orpheus has been making plans to go to the Underworld and bring his wife back to life.

At its heart Ruhl's Eurydice is a melancholy play about loss, grieving and moving on: The waters of Lethe that make the dead forget the living world are constantly referenced with water metaphors that are brought out by Tina Torbey's blue set: We first meet the lovers at the seaside, Orpheus likes to shower when guests are due so he doesn't have to greet them, Eurydice seals her fate by leaving the party to go for a drink of water, and she arrives at the Underworld in rain. But the play does all this by disarmingly putting an almost-constant smile on your face.

Because the play takes more from absurdism than Greek Tragedy; yes there's a Chorus, but they're a grumpy trio of Stones (Katy Brittain, Tom Morley, Leyon Stolz-Hunter,) put in weird sack-like costumes by Emily Stuart, who for the most part just complain that the father-daughter reunion means a lot more talk than they're used to, interrupting their quiet afterlife. The Lord of the Underworld (Wiltshire Smith) is a petulant schoolboy. Orpheus' musical genius here is interpreted as a cute-but-dim boy who's a little bit too immersed in his world of music to entirely register the real world, or his wife.

In fact instead of Orpheus' impatience, here it's the fact that he and his wife have never quite been as in tune with each other as they think that results in the tragic ending. But that's about as much as I really want to join the dots as Powell-Jones' dreamily charming production of Ruhl's cryptically lyrical script makes sense on more of an emotional level than a logical one, and I'm happy to let it work that way. I've seen the play before and found it just-OK, but in this intimate space it really sucked me into its funny-sad world.

Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl is booking until the 9th of November at Jermyn Street Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Alex Brenner.