A luminous retelling of the Orpheus myth through the eyes of its heroine, as Red Stitch presents the Victorian Premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice from 3 September.
Eurydice and Orpheus are in love; life is as beautiful as nature dreamt it. But there is a Nasty Interesting Man who has been watching Eurydice. And he has something she wants.
Touching, inventive and magical, Eurydice is a surprising retelling of the ancient myth of Orpheus, focusing not on the mourning musician but on his lost bride - and on her struggle with love and memory beyond the grave as both wife and daughter.
Lured into death on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the Underworld, where she is reunited with her father and finds herself struggling to remember her husband. With contemporary, whimsical characters and a modern exploration of love, loss, longing and the pleasures and pains of memory, Sarah Ruhl’s play is brought to life by a compelling cast.
Red Stitch ensemble member, Ngaire Dawn Fair – who will portray Eurydice says: “The simplicity and lightness of touch in Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is a rare gem and stylistically it is an unusual choice for Red Stitch. We were excited about the challenges of creating a heightened, fantastical world but what really captured our hearts was the raw emotional reality of the piece.”
She will be joined by fellow Red Stitch ensemble members Johnathan Peck as Orpheus, Olga Makeeva as Loud Stone, Dion Mills as a Nasty Interesting Man and Lord of the Underworld, and guest actors Alexandra Aldrich as Small Stone, Sam Duncan as Big Stone (both making their debut with Red Stitch) and Alex Menglet as Eurydice’s Father.
Luke Kerridge directs for the first time at Red Stitch. He has trained with the SITI Company in New York and is a graduate of the VCA Directors Program where he was the recipient of the Grace Marion Wilson Trust and the Jim Marks Postgraduate Scholarship. He has also directed for MKA and ATYP. Luke is joined by Set & Costume Designer Emily Collett and Sound Designer Ian Moorhead, both Red Stitch debutantes, plus Red Stitch Resident Lighting Designer Clare Springett.
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright who gained wide spread recognition for her play The Clean House (2004), winning the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize as the best English Language play written by a woman. She won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006, the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright, the Feminist Press’ Forty under Forty Award, and the 2010 Lilly Award. She is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama.
“Exhilarating!! A luminous retelling of the Orpheus myth, lush and limpid as a dream where both author and audience swim in the magical, sometimes menacing, and always thrilling flow of the unconscious.” – The New Yorker
Eurydice
Red Stitch Theatre, Rear 2, Chapel Street, St. Kilda East
Season: 3 September – 4 October 2014
Bookings: (03) 9533 8083 or online at: www.redstitch.net
For more information, visit: www.redstitch.net for details.
Image: courtesy of Red Stitch Actors Theatre