I had the pleasure of seeing Stevenson University’s production of Eurydice last Thursday night. The story told in the production is about the Greek myth of Eurydice and her husband Orpheus. Eurydice tragically dies on the night of her wedding and is deemed to the underworld. Distraught, Orpheus seeks to find his lost bride and bring her back to the land of the living. While in the underworld, Eurydice is reunited with her deceased father and meets a chorus of stones who guide her. Eventually, Orpheus makes a deal with the ruler of the underworld to bring Eurydice back to life, but it fails and Orpheus is doomed to play sad music forever.
The cast of the play performed beautifully. They projected their voices so that they filled the entire space and enunciated their lines clearly and precisely. I think I speak for the entire audience when I say that their performances made us feel like we were experiencing the story first hand instead of watching a show. The ability of the three stones to speak in union at all times was truly impressive as was the ability of some of the actresses to play two roles in the show.
The set was very minimal and simple, and it was a good choice for it to be that way. The play was one continuous act with no intermission or set change so the set that they had needed to be very versatile. The entire space of the stage was used during the play. There were two levels to define the difference between the underworld and the world of the living. There were pools of water on one side of the stage to represent the river in the underworld and poles that extended from the second level of the set on the other side of the stage to build a component of the set. The lighting and music were executed very precisely and achieved their desired intentions.
Stevenson University put on an excellent production of Eurydice, the cast preformed beautifully and the set design and the audio visual affects were spot on.