Directed by Kathy Scambiatterra, the Artistic Home’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice marks the end of the actor-centered company’s pandemic hiatus. Ruhl’s script breaks from most tellings of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus by adopting the perspective of Eurydice as it explores themes of grief, memory, and eternity. While the Artistic Home’s production captures the visual wonder and lyricism of Ruhl’s script, some elements of the production rob Euryidce’s choices of their stakes, making the show feel more like a string of impressionistic vignettes than a climactic narrative driven by an empowered heroine.
On the night of her wedding, Eurydice falls to her untimely death. As her husband Orpheus desperately searches for a way to resurrect his bride, in the Underworld, Eurydice reunites with her late father and struggles to piece together the details of her life. Karla Corona plays Eurydice with an exuberance that could read as childlike were it not tempered by her frankness, and the probing, inquisitive gaze of an old-soul. Corona’s Eurydice finds her perfect match in Javier Carmona’s Father, a tender and slow-spoken man full of understated humor. The two have remarkable stage chemistry: Corona’s Eurydice always full of questions or candid observations and Carmona’s Father ready to listen attentively and weigh in with a thoughtful opinion. Enhanced by Scambiatterra’s directorial choice to emphasize moments of humor and joy, the tenderness and delight in the scenes between the father and the daughter make for some of the most moving moments of the play.