Eurydice by Sarah RuhlDramaturgy CasebookBrenna Nicely

Table of Contents

The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice 3

The Classical Myth 3

Who is Orpheus? 3

Who is Eurydice? 5

The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: Summary 6

Sources11

Classical Texts 12

Virgil’s Georgics 12

Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15

Sources17

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Production History Timeline 18

Sarah Ruhl Resources 21

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The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

Figure 1: George Frederick Watts, “Orpheus and Eurydice” (ca. 1869-1872)

The Classical Myth

The myth of Orpheus is told and retold by many ancient epic poets and historians and various authors and artists in subsequent eras. Below is a summary of the major figures in the myth as well as summaries of various versions of the myth.

Who is Orpheus?

Orpheus was a singer, musician and poet whose music. He is said either to have invented the lyre and cithara (which he is known for playing) or he increased the number of strings on the instruments from seven to nine to represent the nine Muses. It is said that when he sang, trees would bow, animals would follow in tow, and even the most violent men would become gentle. During the expedition of the Argonauts, Orpheus calmed a storm with his singing and saved the Argonauts by surpassing the sweetness of the Sirens’ singing.

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Orpheus’ mother is usually said to be the Muse Calliope. His father, Oeager, is said to either be the son of the god Ares (god of war and father to the Amazons of Thrace), Charops (a Thracian man placed on the throne by Dionysus and initiated into the Dionysian mysteries), or Pierus (the man to introduce the cult of Muses to Thrace).

Figure 2: Karoly Ferenczy, "Orpheus" (1894)

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Who is Eurydice?

Though many references attribute the name “Eurydice” to the spouse of many powerful Greek men, the Eurydice of the Orpheus myth was a Nymph, also known as a Dryad or a daughter of Apollo (son of Zeus and Leto, of whom Hera was extremely jealous).

Figure 3: Charles-Francois Leboeuf, "Dying Eurydice" (1822)

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The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: Summary

Figure 4: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, "Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld" (1861)

Orpheus allegedly lived a very carefree life among the Menaeds before meeting Eurydice. Upon their meeting, the two were inseparably in love. The rustic god Aristaeus, a son of Apollo credited with bringing many farming and hunting skills (especially bee-keeping) to men from the Muses desired Eurydice for her beauty. Even though she had no desire for him and she was in love with another man, Aristeaus pursued her as she walked along a river in Thrace. As she ran away from him, she stepped on a snake and died from the poison of its bite.Upon Eurydice’s death, Orpheus was inconsolable and entered the Underworld, attempting to bring her back. With the music of his lyre, Orpheus charmed the monsters of Hades such as the three-headed dog Cerberus and the gods of the Underworld. Hades and Persephone decided to restore Eurydice to Orpheus as they felt his musical display proved the depth of his love. The only condition for this agreement was that Orpheus was to return to daylight, followed by Eurydice, not looking back at her until they left the Underworld. As Orpheus listened to a footfall behind him, he could hear nothing since Eurydice was in the form of a ghostly shade with no human footfall. As they approached daylight, Orpheus, who could not hear his wife, grew ever more skeptical that Hades had tricked him into leaving the Underworld. Just before they reached daylight, Orpheus was seized with doubt and looked back to see if his wife was

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following him. Eurydice again returned to the underworld and Orpheus was denied re-entry into the Underworld to retrieve her.

It is said that after Orpheus returned to daylight without Eurydice, he was seized with guilt and rejected women for the rest of his life. Some say that he surrounded himself with young men and invented the erotic practice of pederasty. Others elaborate on this story, claiming that Orpheus invented a series of mysteries which he would practice in a locked house with a group of men who were required to leave their weapons outside. The Thracian women were insulted by Orpheus’ fidelity to Eurydice after her death and ended up killing him with weapons left outside of this locked house.

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Figure 6: Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein, "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1806)

Figure 5: Emile Levy, "The Death of Orpheus" (1866)

Figure 7: Edmund Dulac, "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1934)

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Figure 8: Michael Putz-Richard, "Orpheus and Eurydice" (1868)

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Other versions of this myth claim that Orpheus was either killed by Zeus for disclosing forbidden information about the Underworld, or that Orpheus played mournful music, summoning death, and was ripped to shreds by animals who were weeping from the beauty of his music. Another version of the myth claims that the Thracian women’s intense desire for Orpheus was due to a curse placed on them by Aphrodite. It is said that Calliope (Orpheus’ mother) adjudicated in a dispute between Aphrodite and Persephone over the love of Adonis. Calliope ruled that the women would share Adonis at different times of the year, which did not please Aphrodite. The desire of the Thracian women was so strong that none would yield to another and they ended up tearing the body of Orpheus apart and throwing it in a river which bore his body to the sea. The gods punished Thrace with a plague, claiming that it would not end until they found the head of Orpheus and paid it due honor. A fisherman found the bloody head at the mouth of a river, still singing. The soul of Orpheus is said to reside in the Elysian Fields where he sings for the souls of the Blessed Ones and possesses wisdom about the afterlife because of his journey to the underworld. He is also thought to be an ancestor of Homer and Hesiod.

Figure 9: Jean Belville, "Orpheus" (1893)

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Sources

Grimal, Pierre. The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Ed. Stephen Kershaw. Trans. A. R. Maxwell-Hysop. London: Penguin Group, 1991. Print.

“Orpheus and Eurydice.” Paleothea. 10 Jan 2008. Web. <http://paleothea.com/Myths/Orpheus.html>.

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Classical Texts

The largest collection of source information on the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice lie in the annals of classic texts such as those of Virgil and Ovid. The poetry and imagery from these stories (along with others) were likely a great source of inspiration for Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. Below is a representative collection of classical texts in English that serve to build the mythology surrounding Orpheus and Eurydice.

Virgil’s GeorgicsProteus tells the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in his advice to Aristaeus

4.453-553

Not for nothing does divine anger harass you:you atone for a heavy crime: it is Orpheus, wretched man,who brings this punishment on you, no less than you deserveif the fates did not oppose it: he raves madly for his lost wife.She, doomed girl, running headlong along the stream,so as to escape you, did not see the fierce snake, that keptto the riverbank, in the deep grass under her feet.But her crowd of Dryad friends filled the mountaintopswith their cry: the towers of Rhodope wept, and the heightsof Pangaea, and Thrace, the warlike land of Rhesus,and the Getae, the Hebrus, and Orythia, Acte’s child.Orpheus, consoling love’s anguish, with his hollow lyre,sang of you, sweet wife, you, alone on the empty shore,of you as day neared, of you as day departed.He even entered the jaws of Taenarus, the high gatesof Dis, and the grove dim with dark fear,and came to the spirits, and their dread king, and heartsthat do not know how to soften at human prayer.The insubstantial shadows, and the phantoms of those without light,came from the lowest depths of Erebus, startled by his song,as many as the thousand birds that hide among the leaves,when Vesper, or wintry rain, drives them from the hills,mothers and husbands, and the bodies of noble heroesbereft of life, boys and unmarried girls, and young menplaced on the pyre before their father’s eyes:round them are the black mud and foul reedsof Cocytus, the vile marsh, holding them with its sluggish waters,and Styx, confining them in its nine-fold ditches.The House of the Dead itself was stupefied, and innermostTartarus, and the Furies, with dark snakes twined in their hair,and Cerberus held his three mouths gaping wide,and the whirling of Ixion’s wheel stopped in the wind.And now, retracing his steps, he evaded all mischance,

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and Eurydice, regained, approached the upper air,he following behind (since Proserpine had ordained it),when a sudden madness seized the incautious lover,one to be forgiven, if the spirits knew how to forgive:he stopped, and forgetful, alas, on the edge of light,his will conquered, he looked back, now, at his Eurydice.In that instant, all his effort was wasted, and his pactwith the cruel tyrant was broken, and three times a crashwas heard by the waters of Avernus. ‘Orpheus,’ she cried,‘what madness has destroyed my wretched self, and you?See, the cruel Fates recall me, and sleep hides my swimming eyes,Farewell, now: I am taken, wrapped round by vast night,stretching out to you, alas, hands no longer yours.’She spoke, and suddenly fled, far from his eyes,like smoke vanishing in thin air, and never saw him more,though he grasped in vain at shadows, and longedto speak further: nor did Charon, the ferryman of Orcus,let him cross the barrier of that marsh again.What could he do? Where could he turn, twice robbed of his wife?With what tears could he move the spirits, with what voicemove their powers? Cold now, she floated in the Stygian boat.They say he wept for seven whole months,beneath an airy cliff, by the waters of desolate Strymon,and told his tale, in the icy caves, softening the tigers’ mood,and gathering the oak-trees to his song:as the nightingale grieving in the poplar’s shadowslaments the loss of her chicks, that a rough ploughman sawsnatching them, featherless, from the nest:but she weeps all night, and repeats her sad song perchedamong the branches, filling the place around with mournful cries.No love, no wedding-song could move Orpheus’s heart.He wandered the Northern ice, and snowy Tanais,and the fields that are never free of Rhipaean frost,mourning his lost Eurydice, and Dis’s vain gift:the Ciconian women, spurned by his devotion,tore the youth apart, in their divine rites and midnightBacchic revels, and scattered him over the fields.Even then, when Oeagrian Hebros rolled the head onwards,torn from its marble neck, carrying it mid-stream,the voice alone, the ice-cold tongue, with ebbing breath,cried out: ‘Eurydice, ah poor Eurydice!’‘Eurydice’ the riverbanks echoed, all along the stream.So Proteus spoke, and gave a leap into the deep sea,and where he leapt the waves whirled with foam, under the vortex.But not Cyrene: speaking unasked to the startled youth:

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‘Son, set aside these sad sorrows from your mind.This is the cause of the whole disease, because of it the Nymphs,with whom that poor girl danced in the deep groves,sent ruin to your bees. Offer the gifts of a suppliant,asking grace, and worship the gentle girls of the woods,since they’ll grant forgiveness to prayer, and abate their anger.But first I’ll tell you in order the method of worship.Choose four bulls of outstanding physique,that graze on your summits of green Lycaeus,and as many heifers, with necks free of the yoke.Set up four altars for them by the high shrines of the goddesses,and drain the sacred blood from their throatsleaving the bodies of the steers in the leafy grove.Then when the ninth dawn shows her lightsend funeral gifts of Lethean poppies to Orpheus,and sacrifice a black ewe, and revisit the grove:worship Eurydice, placate her with the death of a calf.’Without delay he immediately does as his mother ordered:he comes to the shrines, raises the altars as required,and leads four chosen bulls there of outstanding physique,and as many heifers with necks free of the yoke.Then when the ninth dawn brings her light,he sends funeral gifts to Orpheus, and revisits the grove.Here a sudden wonder appears, marvellous to tell,bees buzzing and swarming from the broken flanksamong the liquefied flesh of the cattle,and trailing along in vast clouds, and flowing togetheron a tree top, and hanging in a cluster from the bowed branches.

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Ovid’s Metamorphoses

The Death of Eurydice10.1-85

Hymen, called by the voice of Orpheus, departed, and, dressed in his saffron robes, made his way through the vast skies to the Ciconian coast: but in vain. He was present at Orpheus’s marriage, true, but he did not speak the usual words, display a joyful expression, or bring good luck. The torch, too, that he held, sputtered continually, with tear-provoking fumes, and no amount of shaking contrived to light it properly. The result was worse than any omens. While the newly wedded bride, Eurydice, was walking through the grass, with a crowd of naiads as her companions, she was killed, by a bite on her ankle, from a snake, sheltering there. When Thracian Orpheus, the poet of Rhodope, had mourned for her, greatly, in the upper world, he dared to go down to Styx, through the gate of Taenarus, also, to see if he might not move the dead.

Through the weightless throng, and the ghosts that had received proper burial, he came to Persephone, and the lord of the shadows, he who rules the joyless kingdom. Then striking the lyre-strings to accompany his words, he sang: ‘O gods of this world, placed below the earth, to which all, who are created mortal, descend; if you allow me, and it is lawful, to set aside the fictions of idle tongues and speak the truth, I have not come here to see dark Tartarus, nor to bind Cerberus, Medusa’s child, with his three necks, and snaky hair. My wife is the cause of my journey. A viper she trod on diffused its venom into her body, and robbed her of her best years. I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried: Love won.

 He is a god well known in the world above, though I do not know if it is so here: though I do imagine him to be here, as well, and if the story of that rape in ancient times is not a lie, you also were wedded by Amor. I beg you, by these fearful places, by this immense abyss, and the silence of your vast realms, reverse Eurydice’s swift death. All things are destined to be yours, and though we delay a while, sooner or later we hasten home. Here we are all bound, this is our final abode, and you hold the longest reign over the human race. Eurydice, too, will be yours to command, when she has lived out her fair span of years, to maturity. I ask this benefit as a gift; but, if the fates refuse my wife this kindness, I am determined not to return: you can delight in both our deaths.’

The bloodless spirits wept as he spoke, accompanying his words with the music. Tantalus did not reach for the ever-retreating water: Ixion’s wheel was stilled: the vultures did not pluck at Tityus’s liver: the Belides, the daughters of Danaüs, left their water jars: and you, Sisyphus, perched there, on your rock. Then they say, for the first time, the faces of the Furies were wet with tears, won over by his song: the king of the deep, and his royal bride, could not bear to refuse his prayer, and called for Eurydice.

She was among the recent ghosts, and walked haltingly from her wound. The poet of Rhodope received her, and, at the same time, accepted this condition, that he must not turn his eyes behind him, until he emerged from the vale of Avernus, or the gift would be null and void.

They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near to the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a

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second time, now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last ‘farewell’ that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned again towards that same place.

Stunned by the double loss of his wife, Orpheus was like that coward who saw Cerberus, the three-headed dog, chained by the central neck, and whose fear vanished with his nature, as stone transformed his body. Or like Olenos, and you, his Lethaea, too proud of your beauty: he wished to be charged with your crime, and seem guilty himself: once wedded hearts, you are now rocks set on moist Mount Ida.

Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman fended him off. Still, for seven days, he sat there by the shore, neglecting himself and not taking nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food. He took himself to lofty Mount Rhodope, and Haemus, swept by the winds, complaining that the gods of Erebus were cruel.

Three times the sun had ended the year, in watery Pisces, and Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his love to young boys, and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering, this side of manhood.

The Death of Orpheus11.1-66

  While the poet of Thrace, with songs like these, drew to himself the trees, the souls of wild beasts, and the stones that followed him, see, how the frenzied Ciconian women, their breasts covered with animal skins, spy Orpheus from a hilltop, as he matches songs to the sounding strings. One of them, her hair scattered to the light breeze, called: ‘Behold, behold, this is the one who scorns us!’ and hurled her spear at the face of Apollo’s poet, as he was singing. Tipped with leaves, it marked him, without wounding. The next missile was a stone, that, thrown through the air, was itself overpowered by the harmony of voice and lyre, and fell at his feet, as though it were begging forgiveness for its mad audacity. But in fact the mindless attack mounted, without restraint, and mad fury ruled. All their missiles would have been frustrated by his song, but the huge clamour of the Berecyntian flutes of broken horn, the drums, and the breast-beating and howls of the Bacchantes, drowned the sound of the lyre. Then, finally, the stones grew red, with the blood of the poet, to whom they were deaf.      First, the innumerable birds, the snakes, and the procession of wild animals, still entranced by the voice of the singer, a mark of Orpheus’s triumph, were torn apart by the Maenads. Then they set their bloody hands on Orpheus, and gathered, like birds that spy the owl, the bird of night, wandering in the daylight, or as in the amphitheatre, on the morning of the staged events, on either side, a doomed stag, in the arena, is prey to the hounds. They rushed at the poet, and hurled their green-leaved thyrsi, made for a different use. Some threw clods of earth, some branches torn from the trees, and others flints. And so that their madness did not lack true weapons, by chance, oxen were turning the soil under the ploughshare, and, not far away from them, brawny farm workers were digging the solid earth, sweating hard to prepare it for use, who fled when they saw the throng, leaving their work tools behind. Hoes, heavy mattocks, and long rakes lay scattered through the empty fields. After catching these up, and ripping apart the oxen,

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that threatened them with their horns, the fierce women rushed back to kill the poet. As he stretched out his hands, speaking ineffectually for the first time ever, not affecting them in any way with his voice, the impious ones murdered him: and the spirit, breathed out through that mouth to which stones listened, and which was understood by the senses of wild creatures – O, God! – vanished down the wind.      The birds, lamenting, cried for you, Orpheus; the crowd of wild creatures; the hard flints; the trees that often gathered to your song, shedding their leaves, mourned you with bared crowns. They say the rivers, also, were swollen with their own tears, and the naiads and dryads, with dishevelled hair, put on sombre clothes. The poet’s limbs were strewn in different places: the head and the lyre you, Hebrus, received, and (a miracle!) floating in midstream, the lyre lamented mournfully; mournfully the lifeless tongue murmured; mournfully the banks echoed in reply. And now, carried onward to the sea, they left their native river-mouth and reached the shores of Lesbos, at Methymna. Here, as the head lay exposed on the alien sand, its moist hair dripping brine, a fierce snake attacked it. But at last Phoebus came, and prevented it, as it was about to bite, and turned the serpent’s gaping jaws to stone, and froze the mouth, wide open, as it was.The ghost of Orpheus sank under the earth, and recognised all those places it had seen before; and, searching the fields of the Blessed, he found his wife again and held her eagerly in his arms. There they walk together side by side; now she goes in front, and he follows her; now he leads, and looks back as he can do, in safety now, at his Eurydice.’

Sources

Ovid. “Book X.” The Metmorphoses. A. S. Kline, 2000. Web. <www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Metamorph10.htm>.

Virgil. “Book 4: Bee-Keeping (Apiculture.” Georgics. Trans. A. S. Kline, 2002. Web. <www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilGeorgicsIV.htm#_Toc534524384>.

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Production History TimelineA brief list of previous professional productions of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice with links to

production pages and reviews.

2003

Madison Repertory TheatreProduction information:

http://www.madstage.com/shows03/eurydice.htmlThe Badger Herald Review:

http://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2003/09/24/eurydice_kicks_off_m.php

2004

Berkeley Repertory TheatreProduction information:

http://www.berkeleyrep.org/html/abouttherep/release_09.16.04.htmlAnnouncement of moving production to Second Stage:

http://www.berkeleyrep.org/press/pr/0607/Berkeley_Rep_Waters_Eurydice_NYC.pdfVariety Review:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117925478?refCatId=33&ref=related

2006

Yale Repertory TheatreNew York Times Review: http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/theater/reviews/03eury.html?

pagewanted=allVariety Review:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931753?refCatId=33Hartford Courant Review:

http://articles.courant.com/2006-10-02/features/0610020641_1_eurydice-orpheus-sarah-ruhlProduction Information:

http://www.yalerep.org/press/r_07/rep1/index.html

2007

Second Stage TheatreBroadway.com Casting Announcement:

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/96451/casting-complete-for-sarah-ruhls-eurydice-at-second-stage/

TheatreMania Review:

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http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/06-2007/eurydice_10958.htmlNew York Times Review:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/theater/reviews/19seco.htmlCurtainUp Review:

http://www.curtainup.com/eurydice2ndstage.html

2008

Alliance TheatrePlaybill.com Announcement:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/116023-Eurydice-Opens-at-Atlantas-Alliance-Theatre-March-19

Creative Loafing Atalanta Review:http://clatl.com/atlanta/eurydice/Content?oid=1272755

Production Information:http://www.theatrealliance.org/event/eurydice-sarah-ruhl

Wilma TheatrePhiladelphia Weekly Review:

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/arts-and-culture/stage-38467819.htmlPlaybill and Newsletter:

http://www.wilmatheater.org/sites/default/files/wilmabill/Wilmabill_Eurydice.pdfProduction Information:

http://www.wilmatheater.org/archive/53/834

Milwaukee Repertory TheatreExpress Milwaukee Blog Review:

http://expressmilwaukee.com/blog-1871-random-thoughts-about-the-reps-eurydice.htmlStudy Guide:

http://www.milwaukeerep.com/education/documents/euridyce_000.pdfProduction Information:

http://www.milwaukeerep.com/enews/mediareleases/eurydice_media.htm

ACT TheatreSeattlepi Blog Review:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/alltheworldsastage/2008/09/14/acts-eurydice-retells-a-classic-story/The Seattle Times Preview:

http://seattletimes.com/html/thearts/2008164969_eurydice080.htmlThe Seattle Times Review:

http://seattletimes.com/html/thearts/2008178140_zart12eurydice.htmlProduction Information:

http://www.acttheatre.org/downloads/pr-8-12-2008-Eurydice.pdf

Artists Repertory Theatre

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Production information:http://www.artistsrep.org/onstage/2008---2009-season/eurydice.aspx

2010

Young Vic TheatreProduction Information:

http://www.youngvic.org/archive/eurydiceFinancial Times Review:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a00cf19a-5928-11df-adc3-00144feab49a.html#axzz27zp5q820The Telegraph Review:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/london-shows/7737755/Eurydice-Young-Vic-review.html

The Independent Review:http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/eurydice-young-vic-

london-1969897.html

2012

Pillsbury House TheatreStar Tribune Review:

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/stageandarts/169904456.html?refer=yMPR News Review:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2012/09/the-reviews-are-in-for-walking-shadows-eurydice.shtml

Twin Cities Daily Planet Review:http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/arts/theater/eurydice-walking-shadow-theatre-company-review

South Coast RepertoryProduction Information:

http://www.scr.org/press/12-13press/eurydicepress.aspxOrange County Register Reviews:

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/eurydice-373124-ruhl-play.htmlhttp://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/eurydice-372329-ruhl-play.html

Newport Beach Independent Review:http://www.newportbeachindy.com/?p=10790

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Sarah Ruhl Resources

http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2902 2007 Article in Bomb written by Paula Vogel including a dialogue between the two women.

Vogel notices Ruhl’s “pre-twentieth century” play structure, relating it to successful staging in older architectural theatre models. Ruhl stresses the importance of Freud and how his “Oedipal complex” is correct, suggesting that theatre artists should go back to the Greeks for guidance/inspiration. Ruhl’s structure is “putting things up against Freud” to create an anti-realism: “If you excavate people’s subjectivity and how they view the world emotionally, you don’t get realism.” Ruhl stresses the importance of thinking and feeling in the theatre: “I felt that theater was actually a place where the voice could be attached to emotion. Theater is still a living tradition of speech and emotion. It’s something that deeply attracts me.” Emotions versus “theatre of the rational mousetrap” “I think Eurydice has no chairs. Maria Dizzia, who played Eurydice, said when she was scared at one point in the process, “There are no pillars to hide behind.” And there are no chairs to sit on.” Ruhl experiences emotions suddenly. Revering Mac Wellman: “Character is what people say; it is not the things that they don’t say.”

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/03/17/080317crat_atlarge_lahr 2008 article “Surreal Life” by John Lahr at The New Yorker about Ruhl,

Emphasizes her focus on her dual-role approach to theatre: photographer/playwright, tone/atmosphere, ordinary/extraordinary juxtaposed. Theatre as “three-dimensional poems.” Characterization of Ruhl as both outwardly reserved and inwardly steely. Ruhl’s father died when she was 20 and used to teach her the words the Father teaches in Eurydice. “Ruhl’s goal is to make the audience live in the moment, to make the known world unfamiliar in order to reanimate it. Here the essential nature of the underworld—its sense of absence—is made visceral by the volumes of meticulously constructed empty space that the string defines.” Ruhl prefers Ovid (transformation) over Aristotle (neat arc). “She told me, ‘I prefer an actor who says, ‘My character doesn’t have a backstory, so I won’t concoct one. I will live as fully in every moment as I can. I will let the language move me, as opposed to a secret backstory of my own.’ She likes her actors to have ‘a sense of irony,’ and to be ‘touched with a little brush of the irrational.’ Ruhl is a fan of direct address

http://lct.org/showBlog.htm?id=189&blogEntryId=138 2009 interview with Sarah Ruhl by Brendan Lemon on the Lincoln Center blog during the rehearsal process of In the Next Room in New York.

22 • © Brenna Nicely 2012

http://newyorktheatrereview.blogspot.com/2012/07/six-questions-for-sarah-ruhl-posed-by.html 2012 interview by Olivia Jane Smith for New York Theatre Review.

23 • © Brenna Nicely 2012