'Eurydice' Off-Broadway review — Maya Hawke takes a trip to the underworld
Read our review of Eurydice off Broadway, a revival of Sarah Ruhl’s play at Signature Theatre starring Maya Hawke, Brian d'Arcy James, and Caleb Eberhardt.
Maya Hawke is just as game to star in a surreal Off-Broadway melodrama as she is a hit movie franchise. Hawke is at home in the frustrated, determined, and slightly mysterious title role of Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s take on the Greek myth. Signature Theatre’s production reunites Ruhl and director Les Waters in a revival that changes little from its 2003 premiere. The script remains fanciful; Eurydice is still both in charge of and unaware of her own destiny; the plentiful water is wet. The question is less, “Why revive this story right now?” than “Why not?”
Indeed, Ruhl’s play is full of just as much whimsy and grief as it was 20 years ago, and Hawke’s reunion with her deceased father (Brian d’Arcy James), who has been patiently penning letters to her from the underworld, is just as heartfelt. Ruhl’s play is dedicated to her father, who died while she was in college, and it explores the father-daughter relationship a bit more than that of Eurydice and Orpheus (Caleb Eberhardt). Eberhardt’s sullen seriousness feels out of place in a play that is committed to being both genuine and ridiculous; he is perhaps emulating his (albeit fantastic) past performances in dramas like Signature's The Comeuppance more than exploring something new and grounded in Ruhl’s and Waters’s world.
Waters’s direction does differentiate the worldly Orpheus from the chorus of Stones (Maria Elena Ramirez, Jon Norman Schneider, and David Ryan Smith), but the decision of the director and costume designer Oana Botez to dress the Stones as Pierrots (a theatrical stock character resembling a sad clown) feels obvious. T. Ryder Smith’s Very Nasty Interesting Man/Lord of the Underworld is appropriately grotesque, but also much more, well, interesting than Orpheus. I’d take his antics over the musician’s soul-searching any day — and is that the intent of the play?
Eurydice summary
Inspired by the Greek myth, Ruhl’s Eurydice focuses foremost on the female protagonist rather than her relationship with the musician Orpheus (Eberhardt). On the day of her wedding to Orpheus, Eurydice (Hawke) is lured to an apartment by a Nasty Interesting Man (T. Ryder Smith), who claims to have a letter from her deceased father.
Eurydice soon finds herself drenched in a rainy underworld, unable to speak the language of the living and confronted by a chorus of three annoyed, Moirai-ish Stones (Ramirez, Schneider, and David Ryan Smith). She soon reunites with her Father (James), who teaches her language and memories while Orpheus schemes to find her and bring her back above ground.
What to expect at Eurydice
Eurydice runs 90 minutes and is performed without an intermission. The production features fog and haze. Eurydice includes discussions of death, dying, and grief.
What audiences are saying about Eurydice
Eurydice has an audience approval rating of 72% on the review aggregator Show-Score as of publication.
- Show-Score user Carolyn B calls Eurydice “breathtaking” and praises the “achingly beautiful work by all involved.”
- Instagram user @smalltownrobin writes that “everything is stunning,” including the props (props supervision is by Rachel M.F. Kenner) and Botez’s costumes.
- Show-Score user aka says Ruhl’s adaptation “provides a canvas for creative staging” but feels Waters’s production is “slow and unfocused.”
Read more audience reviews of Eurydice on Show-Score.
Who should see Eurydice
- Fans of Maya Hawke’s music and her fan-favorite performance in Netflix’s Stranger Things won’t want to miss the young phenom’s Off-Broadway debut.
- If you enjoyed Caleb Eberhardt’s performance in Signature’s production of The Comeuppance by new Pulitzer Prize winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, you’ll also appreciate his brooding Orpheus.
- This production closes out Sarah Ruhl’s residency at Signature, which also featured a revival of her play Orlando, and is a gift to Ruhl fans and students who didn’t catch the last Off-Broadway Eurydice production almost 20 years ago.
Learn more about Eurydice off Broadway
Scenic designer Scott Bradley’s set, along with James’s and Hawke’s performances, make this somewhat uneven revival worth the trek through the rain — just don’t forget your underworld umbrella.
Photo credit: Eurydice off Broadway. (Photos by HanJie Chow)
Originally published on