By Eric Bartels
The Portland Tribune
September 23, 2008

The ancient story of the doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice comes in all kinds of crazy variations, versions that include nests of snakes, godlessness, underage sex and, in one case, a musician so gifted he continues to play even after being dismembered by an angry crowd.

It should come as no surprise then that Sarah Ruhl's "Eurydice," which opened at Artists Repertory Theater Friday, presents a rollicking, hallucinatory take on the Greek myth.

ART audiences got a taste for Ruhl's vivid imagination with last season's "The Clean House," in which a crumbling marriage is viewed through the eyes of a lazy Brazilian housekeeper addicted to joke telling.

The essence of the Orphic myth involves a man's trip to the underworld to retrieve his dead wife, who's been lured there by the promise of seeing her deceased father.

Ruhl's version begins with Orpheus (Gilberto Martin del Campo) and Eurydice (Jennifer LeBlanc) cavorting at the seashore in early 20th century bathing costumes. Their love for each other is giddy and innocent and they romp about – somewhat precariously – atop what looks like modular office furniture and, later, with the aid of a swing cleverly fashioned from stretchy fabric.

All goes well until a leering stranger dressed like a cross between a carnival barker and an oversized leprechaun (Todd Van Voris) catches Eurydice taking a break from her wedding festivities and persuades her to visit his "high-rise apartment" to see a letter from her father.

She's appropriately skeptical, but makes the trip anyway, only to tumble down a vertiginous staircase upon making her exit and land in Hades itself.

'I know how much you hate oatmeal'

From there, Ruhl's surrealist hell takes over as the star of the show. Borrowing from both "Blade Runner" and "Beetlejuice," it's a place that's not so much scary as confusing and, frankly, wildly entertaining. Rather than an actual devil, the operation seems to be run by a trio of strange characters, one on roller skates and another in a wheelchair, who call themselves "Stones."

They are later joined by the same fellow who delivered the fateful letter to Eurydice, although he's now morphed into a sort of imbecilic child-lord of the underworld. Together they try to convince Eurydice that hell is the right place for her, although they don't seem overly determined to detain her or to exclude Orpheus, who's managed to breach the rabbit hole using the ductwork overhead.

The heartbroken husband warns his wife not to kiss any dead men, whose tongues taste like oatmeal. "And I know how much you hate oatmeal," he says.

In the meantime, Eurydice is indeed reintroduced to her father (David Bodin). She doesn't recognize him at first, mistaking him for a porter and haughtily ordering him to carry her suitcase. But Dad plays along until he can jog her memory with stories from the past, re-establishing contact.

Eventually, Eurydice gets her chance to return with her husband to their former life, and the moment is well played. With strings marking the path back to the surface, she follows behind him, hoping he can resist the urge to turn around and see her before they arrive, something he's been instructed not to do.

We know how that ends.

Conjured with conviction
As myths go, this one has always felt especially tragic because one lover's forced exile comes through no real fault of her own and another's desperate, noble rescue attempt truly deserves a better outcome.

But Ruhl's "Eurydice" throws us plenty to hang on to in this fantastical romp. Won over by the heroine's moving reunion with her father, we're consoled by the prospect that she'll see him again even as she fails to return to her husband. What's more, we can imagine that Orpheus, persistent as he is, will eventually find a way to rejoin her.

Perhaps best of all, Ruhl's hell, which is conjured with great conviction and an impressive use of resources and space by director Randall Stuart and ART, isn't such a grim place after all.