Eurydice wants back

The American playwright Sarah Ruhl explores the psychology of Eurydice's "rescue" from among the dead. You might just love this play's questions and answers.

Sarah Ruhl is a MacArthur Fellow. Read her bio at Macfound.org.

What if Eurydice found herself perfectly content, among the dead, to be reunited there with deceased father? What if Eurydice were learning anew, there, like a newcomer how to communicate with the man who had loved her first? What if the associations that matter are not only those between husbands and wives? What if Orpheus' motives and needs are imposed upon Eurydice's?

I saw the play in 2010, having bumped into it through a student's Reception Paper a few years earlier. Why don't you follow the links on the OGCMA slide and start researching your next Reception Paper on this interesting piece? Many reviews of numerous productions constitute secondary scholarship. The script is available online, and the play is currently topical (related to our Orpheus Film Festival).


If you think the Orpheus and Eurydice myth is capable of sustaining yet one more provocative transformation, look into this moving play. Ruhl introduces lots of new insight, along the lines of the best stuff offered by Gluck who (I think) first asked the question from Eurydice's perspective: "What's in this rescue for me?"