EURYDICE Opens 5/17 at the Douglas Morrisson Theatre

The Douglas Morrisson Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with "Eurydice" by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by the Douglas Morrisson Theatre's Artistic Director Susan E. Evans, the play features an ensemble of Bay Area performers:

Alisha Ehrlich as Eurydice, Aby George as Orpheus, Tom Reilly as Her Father, Davern Wright as A Nasty Interesting Man/The Lord of the Underworld, Allison Fenner as Big Stone, Bessie Zolno as Little Stone and Pamela Drummer-Williams as Loud Stone.

"Eurydice" previews on May 16, opens May 17, and runs through June 9, 2013, at the Douglas Morrisson Theatre, 22311 N. Third Street, in Hayward. The Saturday matinee on June 1, 2013, at 2:00 p.m., will be followed by a talkback session with the director and cast.

In the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as it has come down to us from Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Orpheus travels to the underworld to bring back his new bride Eurydice who has died tragically on her wedding day. There's only one condition: he must walk in front of her and not look back until they reach the surface. Just as he is about to reach daylight, he turns to gaze upon his love's face, and she is snatched away forever. The story has been explored in poetry, painting, sculpture, ballet and opera for over 2000 years.

Ruhl's "Eurydice" is a luminous reimagining of this myth through the eyes of Eurydice. We tumble with Eurydice like Alice down into an eerie Wonderland underworld where she is reunited with her father. He must teach her language, since she has been stripped of all her memories. Ruhl's Hades is also populated with a fantastical chorus of Stones and a tricycle-riding Lord of the Underworld.

Director Susan E. Evans feels that "Eurydice" is as much about the power of love between a father and daughter as it is about the classic Orpheus and Eurydice love story. Ruhl wrote "Eurydice" after the death of her father from cancer when she was 20 years old, and she has said that in this play she was trying to have more conversations with him. Ruhl's father loved puns, reading, language and jazz. Every Saturday from when she was five years old, he took Sarah and her older sister to the Walker Bros. Original Pancake house for breakfast. Each visit he taught them a new word and its etymology. This personal memory is echoed in "Eurydice" when Eurydice's Father re-teaches Eurydice her lost vocabulary.

"I like to see people speaking ordinary words in strange places, or people speaking extraordinary words in ordinary places." "Eurydice" is a play filled with lyrical magic. Ruhl studied poetry before becoming a playwright and her dialogue is non-linear and not naturalistic. She sees her plays as "three-dimensional poems." In "Eurydice" she manages a delicate balance of the sad and happy, of pain and pleasure, weirdness and the quotidian, melancholy and whimsical humor.

Ruhl once said that her play could be "a playground for designers." DMT is thrilled to have a top-notch design team on board for "Eurydice," with credits from many Bay Area theatres, including the Magic, Cutting Ball, Shotgun Player and Word for Word, as well as Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Michael J. Locher is the scenic designer, Allen Willner, lighting designer, Valera Coble, costume designer. And in a different twist, our composer and sound designer Don Tieck will be playing live at every performance, alongside the Stones who act as fellow Foley artists. Evans says, "DMT audiences have come to expect impressive design elements at our shows; I don't think "Eurydice" will disappoint them!"

"Eurydice" received workshop productions at Brown University, Children's Theater Company and La Jolla Playhouse. It premiered at Madison Repertory Theatre in September 2003 and was subsequently produced at the Piven Theater Workshop, Evanston, Williamstown Theatre Festival and at Theater Heilbronn, Germany. The West Coast premiere of "Eurydice" was directed by Les Waters at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2004; Waters also staged productions in 2006 at Yale Repertory Theater and in 2007 at Second Stage in New York City.

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