All About Books discussion

The focus play for the April - June 2016 theme of modern retellings of classics is Sarah Ruhl's play Eurydice.

This play is a version of the classic myth of Orpheus, as seen through the eyes of its heroine. From the blurb: "Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story."

I found a copy of it. Really looking forward to it.

I love this play!

I'm planning to read the play this Friday.

So glad I found a group who enjoys reading and discussing plays!

I read it, but didn't like it; I hope it's okay if I still participate.

Karin wrote: "I read it, but didn't like it; I hope it's okay if I still participate."

Sure -- in fact, discussion can be more interesting if people have divergent opinions!

I haven't read this yet but look forward to doing so. I think amber is the one who recommended it to me a while ago... if so, thanks amber!!

I am looking forward to this as I recently read Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus so I am feeling a bit of a Orpheus groove going on. :-)

Leslie wrote: "Karin wrote: "I read it, but didn't like it; I hope it's okay if I still participate."

Sure -- in fact, discussion can be more interesting if people have divergent opinions!

I haven't read this ..."

Excellent. I like it when we can agree to disagree and don't all have to like the same books. I have a nearly 18 year old daughter who loves some literary books I hated at her age (and still dislike now), so it's not personal but interesting.

Leslie wrote: "Karin wrote: "I read it, but]didn't like it; I hope it's okay if I still participate."

Sure -- in fact, discussion can be more interesting if people have divergent opinions!

I haven't read this ..."

Leslie, have you read Orfeo?

No Portia, I am unfamiliar with that. I assume based on the name that it is also a take on the story of Orpheus...

Definitely going to join in on this!

And I second Leslie on the diverging opinions Karin! Respectful disagreement is very welcome - in fact we almost never all agree about any book.

Greg wrote: "Definitely going to join in on this!

And I second Leslie on the diverging opinions Karin! Respectful disagreement is very welcome - in fact we almost never all agree about any book."

Good, I'm all for it then.

Karin- I highly doubt you'll be the only person who doesn't like it, a lot of people hate this play.
I of course judge them on their terrible taste. ;) (that was a joke)

Leslie- Don't thank me yet, you might end up in the hate it group once you've read it. :D

I just got my copy, so I'll be reading along with you all.

Petra wrote: "I just got my copy, so I'll be reading along with you all."

Yay! I'm glad you were able to get a copy.

Just so people know, this one is available free from Ruhl's website

I will join in at some point.

Beth wrote: "Just so people know, this one is available free from Ruhl's website

I will join in at some point."

Oh, excellent! Thanks Beth :-)

Beth, thanks for posting that, I'll take a look.

I was looking for a free copy and managed to miss this! I bought a copy with 2 other plays by the same author. Plan on reading this next week

I have a library copy, and I'll probably start later today.

I think this is a beautiful take in the myth. Orpheus has gotten all the attention these past millennia, so I am pleased to read the story from Eurydice's point of view, especially the playwright's take on what and how the dead remember.

I love this quote behind Ruhl's reasoning for writing this play. She wrote Eurydice in honor of her father, who died in 1994 of cancer, and as a way to "have a few more conversations with him."

Finished the play this afternoon and I liked it very much. (view spoiler)[In the First Movement Scene 1, there's a discussion about books and reading. I like the idea that we read to understand others and to learn about ourselves, and that reading makes us members of a larger community.

I also like the theme that life is like a good meal. You taste and savor, but it eventually has to end.

I'm married to a musician, so the idea that this is what it is to love an artist: ...he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful. rang true for me.
(hide spoiler)]

I'd love to see this play performed.

Portia wrote: "I think this is a beautiful take in the myth. Orpheus has gotten all the attention these past millennia, so I am pleased to read the story from Eurydice's point of view, especially the playwright's..."

Having read Christa Wolf's novel Medea, which is telling the story from Medea's viewpoint, is what inspired this season's theme. After coming up with it, I find it interesting how many more novels I am finding rather than plays, even when the original was a play.

I am looking forward to this -- hopefully I will get to it sometime this week.

Do hurry, Leslie. I want to know what you think of it.

I have enjoyed the "re-telling" of myths and fables and fairy tales since it began with the Women's Movement of the 1970s (that's us Women's Libbers, for you Millennial types ;-) ). It still amazes me how we were "influenced" into a point of view for so many centuries. Did anyone's mother vacuum wearing her pearls? Come on, be honest. *grin and wink*

All those betrayals. Medea, Ariadne. And still they put on their pearls.

Adding to my comments on the playwright's handling of what and how the dead remember, has anyone read A Fine and Private Place? I am reading his The Last Unicorn with another group and was reminded of this book when I was nosing around his publications. The book is about a woman and a man who meet in their own graveyard and I found Beagle's ideas interesting. Since I was in my twenties When I read it, I was of the attitude that I would never have this sort of discussion, being immortal as all twenty-somethings are ;-)

Leslie wrote: "Portia wrote: "I think this is a beautiful take in the myth. Orpheus has gotten all the attention these past millennia, so I am pleased to read the story from Eurydice's point of view, especially t..."

I'd guess that a lot of the play retellings never get published. I know I see theatres doing reimagings regularly.

I found this on YouTube. I'm assuming it's the complete play? Maybe somebody who has read the play could have a quick look at this, and let us know whether it's the complete play or not. I've not be able to find a copy I can read, so it would be quite nice to watch it on YouTube instead.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mz9nGsk...

Thanks for the link, Gill.

Based on the time given (90 minutes give or take), I'd say this is the complete play.

I only made it through the first five minutes. When Eurydice said, "Think yieuu!" I lost interest but decided to give it a few more minutes. The young woman playing Eurydice did seem to remember her acting coach's admonitions by the second time and managed to round that "Thank you," but by then they were losing me. The actors are NOT well matched. There is no chemistry between them. I couldn't see why either of them would miss the other.

A live production can give an audience member so much more richness than reading (body language, facial expression, em-fah-sis on different si-lah-bells) but a bad production can ruin a person's attitude toward a play for good.

If this production is the only option, I'd recommend trying to find the printed version.

Thanks, Petra. I'll give it a miss then! I've not been able to find a copy I can read, but I have found a study guide, so I'll read that instead!

http://www.anoisewithin.org/wp-conten...

Portia wrote: "Do hurry, Leslie. I want to know what you think of it.

I have enjoyed the "re-telling" of myths and fables and fairy tales since it began with the Women's Movement of the 1970s (that's us Women's ..."

By the time I was doing my Women's Studies degree c. 1980 we were using the term feminism, not women's lib, but I grew up reading the newspapers (I started reading those at age 9, which is when I moved past the comics page) during the days of Angela Davis, bra burning and all that sort of stuff. Ironically, I later learned that the bra was invented by a woman to help free women from corsets. No one took her seriously enough (Mary Phelps Jacob) and she sold the patent to Warner around WW II.

I haven't had a chance to get a copy of the play through my library yet but I watched the Rice University performance on YouTube today. While I agree with Portia's criticism of the acting (especially the young lady playing Eurydice), I don't think that was the main cause of my dislike.

I had been anticipating a feminist view of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, something similar to Christa Wolfe's Medea. What I got instead was a Samuel Beckett-like absurdist drama. While I do like some theater of the absurd, this play didn't seem to add anything to my understanding of either current cultural mores or the original Greek myth.

I am now not very inclined to read the text. However, if any of you who have both read the play and seen this performance would be willing to convince me, I will reconsider.

Leslie wrote: "I haven't had a chance to get a copy of the play through my library yet but I watched the Rice University performance on YouTube today. While I agree with Portia's criticism of the acting (especial..."

I'm glad I didn't watch that performance yet! My copy arrived at the library; so I'll read it soon and let you know what I think Leslie.

Gill, I found that none of the libraries near me had Eurydice as a standalone play, but several libraries had The Clean House and Other Plays and another collection of her plays that both contained Eurydice. Maybe check your library systems for those?

Greg wrote: "Gill, I found that none of the libraries near me had Eurydice as a standalone play, but several libraries had The Clean House and Other Plays and another collection of her plays that both contained Eurydice. Maybe check your library systems for those?.."

Good to know. I ended up having to get it through our vitual state catalogue so coudn't renew it for this discussion; there was only one copy of just the solo play in about a half a dozen library networks through that.

I just finished and I loved it. I would enjoy seeing a production of this one day.
I found this a very warm story. Despite being in the Underworld, ties of Love weren't broken.

The only thing my library has by Sarah Ruhl is Stage Kiss so think I'll be giving this a miss after all. If I thought I'd enjoy it I might spend more time locating a second hand copy, but I'm not sure it's worth my effort.

I read the play today -- I liked it more in the written form. However, it still isn't the feminist view of the Orpheus & Eurydice tale that I had hoped for. I did notice in reading this that the relationship between Eurydice and her (dead) father is quite prominent. Perhaps there are some Electra complex allusions or undertones there I had missed when I watched the video.

I did find it interesting that the scene of Eurydice's father building the room of string for her was part of the written script. Since there is no dialogue in that scene, I had thought it might have been a conceit of the Rice University director.

I loved this play. I haven't seen it performed in any context.

I saw the father/daughter relationship as just that. When entering the Underworld, Eurydice was just like a new born child. Her father nurtured, educated and guided her in this new world, as a parent does when a child enters their life.
I thought the string room was a wonderful space of protection that he created for her.

Is this supposed to be a feminist play? Hmmm....I'd have to think on that. It didn't strike me as such.

I'm glad you enjoyed the play, Leslie.

I finished it earlier today, and it... didn't quite work for me. I actually really like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (haven't read it yet though, I've only seen the movie) so I don't always dislike absurdism, but I really didn't get this one. Am I missing something? It didn't really move me like I hoped it would.

I did find the stones oddly compelling, I liked their lines. ("Father is not a word that dead people understand.")

I don't know if it was "supposed" to be a feminist play - I just assumed it was.

I don't know if I would call R & G are Dead adsurdist. Here is a dictionary definition:

"absurdism: the philosophical and literary doctrine that human beings live in essential isolation in a meaningless and irrational world."

I suppose there are some aspects of that in R & G but I tend to think of Waiting for Godot...

I thought there were similarities between R and G, and Waiting for G. I prefer the latter. I don't remember which was written first?

I just read it today, and I really loved this odd little play!

Definitely absurdist, but even though I can't lay it all out in a nice & neat allegory, I feel deep truth in it ... also a sadness. For me as I read this play, I think of life's losses .. the way that we seem not to realize what we want until we've lost it .. the impossibility sometimes of either going forward or going back .. the silly mistakes that have such terrible costs.

I love the moment where Eurydice has chosen to leave her father behind in the underworld for Orpheus' sake but then doesn't recognize Orpheus. So she calls desperately back for her father that's no longer there while her husband waits. Then when she finally decides to follow her husband, she can't be patient - she races to catch up to him and destroys everything by her foolish mistake in calling his name. This all feels so human to me, so very true. How many times have I lost something by needing to race up to it like this? And how many times in my life this sort of bumbling indecision that itself becomes a sort of choice?

I love the moments of magic in this play too, especially the moment when Orpheus blows on the straw and disappears, descending to the underworld.

And the moments of beautiful nonsense language, such as when Orpheus explains the straw: " ...when I go to bed, I will turn off the light and put a straw in my mouth. When I fall asleep, I will crawl through the straw and my breath will push me like a great wind into darkness and I will sing your name and I will arrive." It's lovely I think.

I love some of the images too, the standing on letters since they forget how to read and don't know what to do. This feels human to me too, this struggle to understand things just out of reach; so we end up doing it all wrong. Such a poignant image.

Quite a beautiful play I thought!

Terri wrote: "Finished the play this afternoon and I liked it very much. (view spoiler).."

Terri, I was struck by the quote in your spoiler too, the one about loving an artist!

Exactly, Greg! I loved this play and all it's quirkinesses. You worded it so perfectly.
At the end, there was also the feeling that one can only lose and suffer so much, then one voluntarily walks into the river to forget all things. It's less painful to forget than to remember.
Love is pain; memory is pain.....living is pain but the pain is worth the love, memories and treasures of living.

Petra wrote: "At the end, there was also the feeling that one can only lose and suffer so much, then one voluntarily walks into the river to forget all things. It's less painful to forget than to remember.
Love is pain; memory is pain.....living is pain but the pain is worth the love, memories and treasures of living. ..."

Love the way you put that Petra - sounds like we had very similar readings & experiences of the play. I hope one day I get the chance to see a Ruhl play on stage! :)

I like the way you give such great details in your explanations Greg. You have made me see something in the play that I had missed so thanks! :)

That scene when Eurydice is caught undecided between her father and her husband was one that I had especially liked but you have articulated what is so heart-rending about it so well.

Leslie wrote: "I like the way you give such great details in your explanations Greg. You have made me see something in the play that I had missed so thanks! :)..."

Thanks Leslie! :)

I finally finished the Rice production. Gill, I've got to agree with Portia, it's really, really bad. I'd suggest skipping it. Actually I'd say skip all college productions of Eurydice. I've seen a number of them, and they never work. I'm not sure if that's because the directors know the audience will be college kids, and try to play up whatever humor they can fine in the play, or if it's that the college environment is so into the intellectualization of plays that they over think what Ruhl is going for. They tend to think Ruhl is making absurdist theatre, but I think she's doing something closer to magical realism, the weirdness is supposed to be normal, rather then odd.

I did find that I liked the written play better than that Rice production, amber. So I will endorse your warning to skip the YouTube video!!

Leslie I saw your rating went up a star after reading it verse watching the video. :)