OBSERVER: Sarah Rule’s Eurydice

Sarah Rule’s Eurydice, is a heartfelt paean to her late father, faithfully realised in this Melbourne Shakespeare Company production.
The myth of Orpheus (Tomàš Kantor) venturing to the underworld to rescue Eurydice (Aisha Aidara) is the device by which Rule explores the longing for the departed and the finality of death.
The poetic nature of her dramatic evocation is metaphysical, giving substance to the sense of loss and displacement. Under the direction of Gary Abrahams, the disparate elements of light (Spencer Herd), sound (Grace Ferguson) and set (Nathan Burmeister) form a cohesive whole; the simple use of transparent plastic forming a barrier between this world and the next powerful and haunting. Here too we have different acting styles coming together with the Lord of the Underworld’s (Devon Braithwaite) tap dancing campness juxtaposed with the realism of the Father’s (John Voce) attempts to communicate with his daughter.
Part chorus, part clown, a sense of narrative discord comes from the Furies known in this work as stones (Fran Sweeney-Nash, Miles Paras, Joshua Gordon) who are moved to tears for the loss they witness. They are torn between following the rules of the underworld and sympathizing with Eurydice. In all, the dramatic mix is unique and sensory. We feel the broken heart as much as intellectually engage.
Aidara and Kantor physically embody the real-world physicality of newfound love, but it is left to Aidara, as she crosses to the underworld, to convey the confusion and dislocation one might experience when at a loss to communicate in a strange land where memory is more redolent than language.
This work is theatrically unique. The writing is poetic – Eurydice’s name was found between the raindrops. Sound and lighting are integral to the message; they are the chords and flashes that spark memory. Reality and fantasy combine in the acting styles. The central message of loss, however, remains extant.
Until June 14 at fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane.
Bookings: fortyfivedownstairs.com/event/eurydice/
Cheryl Threadgold