With the recent celebration of International Women’s Day seeing an all female audience on Question Time, plans for women-only applicants for cabinet office in order to even out the gender gap in politics and Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win, the debate about how women adapt themselves to gain recognition in a patriarchal society is becoming louder and more volatile. Riffing on the ideas of death in the Greek myth of troubled Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s latest offering taps into this climate of instability amongst the genders and not only explores physical loss but also how women’s sense of identity is warped and molded by the men that surround them.
Ruhl uses one of our oldest myths to explore how we are shaped by our history
Unable to come to terms with her father’s (Geff Francis) death, Eurydice (Ony Uhiara) agrees to marry Orpheus (Osi Okerfor) but can’t grasp his love and understanding of music. During the wedding she’s given a letter that’s escaped the Underworld written by her father. She is soon lured to her death and eventually the battle is a psychological one where she attempts to come to terms with the roles the two men in her life/death play.
Ruhl doesn’t approach the oft-visited theme of death in a simplistic or clichéd way. Instead she presents it as irrational with Rhys Rusbatch playing the Lord of the Underworld on a tricycle behaving like a petulant child rather than a calculating God. Whilst the cast start on shaky ground, once Francis takes the helm the others soon follow and the piece gains in momentum and rigor. But looking at Patrick Burnier’s desolate smokey set made of steel grids (which invite some striking light effects), the piece is pushed into altogether darker realms. The emptiness that surrounds Eurydice is peppered with men and during her death her father literally shapes her memory. What’s most admiral about Eurydice though is how Ruhl uses one of our oldest myths to explore how we are shaped by our history, in doing so she draws attention to the timelessness of the debates we face today.
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