Sunday, April 06, 2008
A+E, Theater, Reviews
Myth-conception
Alliance’s ‘Eurydice’ easy to forget
CREDIT: Greg Mooney
Chris Kayser and Melinda Helfrich (foreground) in “Eurydice” at the Alliance Theatre.
“EURYDICE”
Alliance Theatre
$24-$30
404-733-5000
www.alliancetheatre.org
Through April 13
By Bert Osborne
“How does one remember to forget?” ponders aloud a character from “Eurydice,” playwright Sarah Ruhl’s mod revamping of a classic Greek myth. If I only knew, I might not have processed this new Alliance Theatre staging in relation to Georgia Shakespeare artistic director Richard Garner’s superior 2006 “Metamorphoses.” (In case I neglected to mention it among all the other adjectives I lavished upon that show at the time, it was unforgettable, too.)
“Eurydice,” a co-production of the two companies, returns Garner to the general vicinity of his earlier sensation, and its surface similarities to “Metamorphoses” are inescapable—another contemporary twist on the same ancient source material, another visually inspired exercise by the same gifted director—right down to the symbolic use of water in both plays. But there’s a telling distinction between the depth of one and the shallowness of the other: In “Metamorphoses,” it meant a 24-foot swimming pool, around and in which the drama took place; in “Eurydice,” it features a hardly noticeable River of Forgetfulness that looks more like a puny puddle.
“Metamorphoses” linked a dozen or so famous myths in a series of 10-minute episodes, including one about the doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice. Besides creating a lot of indelible imagery, the show was also emotionally grounded by the universal humanity of the stories. When Orpheus arrived to rescue his beloved Eurydice from death, and then took a glimpse back at her that forever sealed their tragic fate, we felt something—a personal investment and payoff in just those few moments that the audience rarely gets from the whole of Ruhl’s full-length reworking.
Here, the characters are less relatable and more abstract. The menacing Lord of the Underworld (Andrew Benator), for example, is a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Elmer Fudd, who dwesses in a bwight wed tux or knickers and wolls awound on a twicycle or wollerskates. This Eurydice (Melinda Helfrich) seems overly giddy and gullible, never mind her “new philosophical system involving hats,” whatever that is. This Orpheus (Justin Adams) sounds a bit smug and condescending, talking about the “human community” and accepting the consequences of one’s actions. When their tragic fate is sealed in this version, oh well, that’s that. Instead, the most dramatic scenes focus on Eurydice’s bittersweet reunion with her late father (Chris Kayser).
Garner’s “Eurydice” creates its own indelible imagery—isolated sequences haunt (like the heroine’s wind-tossed fall from earth or a cascade of love letters pouring down on her), and Kat Conley’s set (a warehouse basement of monkey bars and plumbing pipes) boasts an elevator that actually rains (!)—but at its core the play feels hollow and mechanical. To say that the show is worth seeing may very well be true, even though it doesn’t really say quite enough. SP
DULY NOTED:
In terms much more modest than the Alliance’s, style trumps substance in “Diary of a Madman,” too. After a rocky debut with last year’s piddling “The Gin Game,” Metropolis Theater rebounds with a classical flourish in artistic director Prodan Dimov’s sleek staging of an incomprehensible rant (by Nikolai Gogol). Jon Hayden’s brave performance as the schizophrenic monologist is a physical and vocal workout—but who this man is and what in the hell is he talking about become quickly irrelevant, and he loses interest and attention. The show’s technique compensates: Dimov makes uncommonly effective use of the 14th St. Playhouse’s black-box space (including all three of its side exits), which has never been more intricately lit than it is here by Jessica Coale; and I liked how the walls are lined with banners of all the character’s journal entries—if mainly as a nice new way to keep track of the time without having to check my watch. Through April 12. 404-733-4738. www.14thstplayhouse.org.