Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

'Eurydice'

You gotta hand it to those ancient Greeks. Even with the gods at play in many of the myths that survive them, their tales encapsulate the flawed human experience in a way that still holds true thousands of years later. Take Orpheus, the musician who travels all the way to the Underworld to reclaim his wife Eurydice, only to lose her again with an ill-timed backward glance. Acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl takes that storyline as a point of departure in Eurydice, which spins the ordeal from a woman’s perspective. The retelling, now presented by the Middlebury College Department of Theatre and Dance, still explores the fragility of love while incorporating a letter-writing dead father, a river of forgetfulness and an edge of humor that would do the Greeks proud.