Sarah Ruhl

I ordered this play in preparation for the coming spring season at the American Shxp Center. My daughter-in-law studied it in college and loved both author and play; I knew only her work The Clean House performed at Meredith College a decade ago, featuring the talented comic Katy Koop.

This play is clearly an amazing tour de force for designers, featuring mod costumes, a "room of her own" woven of string, and a rain-filled elevator to an underworld presided over by a gargantuan child-ruler. But the surprise of Ruhl's retelling of this familiar death-myth is that the heart of the story is no longer the undying love of the titular wife and her supernaturally talented poet-musician husband. Instead the center of this elliptical play is two-fold: the power of the father-daughter bond of love to outlast even death, and the ultimate inability of any human communication (verbal or musical) to succeed.

Though the play quotes Shakespeare's King Lear, the ASC is pairing it with As You Like It this spring, making me eager to see the connections they find and expose during the run.

Now that I have seen both productions by the ASC, I see several similarities. Both are about journeys undertaken unwillingly; both feature daughters of marriageable age choosing between father and husband; mothers are absent from both; and music is featured prominently in each. The differences between the pair are just as striking: while Eurydice looks backward to her lost father, Rosalind looks forward to her prospective husband; Ruhl's play focuses on a single central couple, while Shakespeare's celebratory finale features four; each of Shakespeare's two focal lovers is backed by a powerfully loyal supporter, while Eurydice's relationships are opposed by several strongly discouraging voices.… (lisätietoja)