Pure Theatre's 'Eurydice' adds new dimension to ancient Greek myth

Mankind always has been fascinated by life after death. Some believe wrong-doers will pay for their sins by spending eternity in some horrific place beneath the Earth, whereas "good people" will float among the clouds, reunited with their loved ones.

Playwright Thornton Wilder believed the dead always are among us, watching us and commenting to each other on how living people take life for granted.

A bizarre take on the afterlife, using a nebulous, modern setting, dominates Pure Theatre's next production, "Eurydice" by Sarah Ruhl. The playwright draws on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus, the maker of beautiful music, and his beloved wife, Eurydice, who dies after being bitten by a poisonous serpent and goes straight into the Underworld.

The play, which started at the Yale Repertory Theatre, was sold out off-Broadway at Second Stages Theatre last summer.

In Ruhl's adaptation, Eurydice doesn't cross the River Styx but conveniently takes an elevator down to a netherworld, where she is met by her dead father but mistakes him for a hotel porter. It seems that the dead, on their way down to their permanent abodes, are mercifully dipped into waters of forgetfulness and Eurydice has even forgotten her husband's name and much of her own history.

But her father gradually helps her restore the memories of her life. Eurydice feels his unconditional love, as a chorus of musicians urges her to "Shut up, and get used to being dead."

Finally, the grief-stricken Orpheus, using his magnificent music, persuades the hard-hearted Hades, gatekeeper of the Underworld, to allow Eurydice to come back to real life. But Hades warns Orpheus, as he goes to fetch Eurydice, that he had better not look back until they both are clearly out of the Underworld, or else.

Director Sharon Graci points out that Ruhl has altered the Orpheus myth by adding the figure of the father to give it another dimension.

"I think the play is remarkable in that it shows that now Eurydice will have to choose between the unconditional love of her father, and the conditional love of her husband — as strong as it may be now, it could vanish some day," says Rodney Lee Rogers, who will take the role of the father. "Yet the father doesn't try to stop her, as he sees she has a chance to live out her life with its joys and sorrows."

But a different view is held by Amanda Franklin Johnson, who will portray Eurydice, a demanding role as the play is told entirely from her point of view.

"I feel that rather than a question of conventional or unconventional love, this play is more about not wanting to grow up and face the unknown," says Johnson, a graduate of Vanderbilt University who moved here from Tennessee.

Johnson, who was recently in the Footlight Players' "This War Is Live," notes that in the myth, it is Orpheus who loses faith and turns around before reaching the world of the living. She says Ruhl has changed the myth by having Eurydice call out Orpheus' name, knowing he will turn around and, thus, ensure that she remains in the Underworld.

However, Brian Smith, who plays Orpheus, disagrees.

"I think Orpheus would have turned around anyway because he didn't have the willpower not to look to make certain Eurydice was behind him," says Smith, a recent theater graduate of the College of Charleston, where he appeared in "Take Me Out" and "Richard III."

Smith explains that although he ostensibly sings a song beautiful beyond the imagination when he visits the Underworld, according to stage directions, he opens his mouth, standing in an unearthly light, but no sound comes out.

"There is also a different ending than that of the myth, in which Orpheus is killed by angry females because, in his deep grief, he continues to ignore them," says Smith. "For this ending, you have to see the play."

Critics have noted that Ruhl, whose dark comedy "Dead Man's Cell Phone" is a hit in New York, has a knack for creating hard choices and not allowing easy answers.

In a cast of seven, along with Rogers, Johnson and Smith, "Eurydice" features Chad Layman as the lord of the Underworld, also doubling as "The Nasty, Interesting Man" when he decides to mingle with the living.

Original music has been composed for piano, drums and accordion in a collaborative effort by musicians Nathan Koci, Bill Carson, Ron Wiltrout and Nick Jenkins. Movement is by Cristy Landis.

This production also marks the first time that Pure Theatre has staged a play at 10 Storehouse Row on Noisette Boulevard in the Navy Yard at Noisette in North Charleston.

"We are still looking for a permanent place to perform," says co-founder Graci, who, with Rogers, is co-founder of Pure Theatre. "Since leaving our home of five years at the Cigar Factory, we have looked everywhere, but haven't decided on a permanent venue as yet.

"But it has worked out well to have 'Eurydice' performed in this rustic space, as it enhances the feeling of being in the dark Underworld, where water is used as a connector between two worlds."