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Eurydice
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by Jean Anouilh
Directed by Kyle Fabel
March 3, 9 & 10, 2003
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street
NYC
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| SYNOPSIS |
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When they meet, Orpheus is just a street musician, barely making a living, Eurydice is an actress touring with a second rate theatre company; yet in this brilliant modern reworking of the myth, their story remains one of humanities most touching and profound. |
| CAST/CREW |
James Murtaugh
Orpheus? Father
Margaret Nichols
Eurydice
Cynthia Harris
Eurydice?s Mother
Scott Schafer
Monsieur Henri
Sean Arbuckle
Hotel Waiter
Denis Butkus
Stage Manager
Richard Ferrone
Bus Driver
Nick Toren
Police Secretary
Brenda Arko
Production Stage Manager
David Toser
Costume Consultant & Designer
Juliet Chia
Lighting Designer
Mary Louise Geiger Lighting Consultant |
| DRAMATURGY |
Jean Anouilh began his journey with love?s adversary on a summer day in June, 1910. His father, Fran?ois, worked as a tailor, while his mother, Marie-Magdalene, played the violin in the orchestra of the Casino at Arcachon, near the family?s home in Bordeaux. As a child, Anouilh spent many nights watching his mother play for various operettas. He started playwriting at the tender age of twelve, and by the age of nineteen had his first finished piece, Humulus Le Muet, a collaboration with Jean Aurenche. This was followed in the same year by Anouilh?s second effort, Mandarine. Once he had finished his early schooling, Anouilh continued his education at the prestigious Sarbonne where he studied law. After graduating, he worked as a copywriter at Publicit? Damour, and penned comedic scenes for the French cinema. Journalism and screenwriting were not, however, counted as Anouilh?s strongest and deepest passions; his heart belonged to ?Le Th??tre.?
He merged his love of the theatre and his love of the heart in 1931 with his marriage to the actress Monelle Valentin. He also began working as secretary to Louis Jouvet at his Com?die des Champs-?lys?es ? the theatre that was to bring forth all of Jean Giraudoux?s most famous works ? before deciding a few years later, at age twenty-five, to commit completely to his playwriting.
The results were prolific. Anouilh wrought a multitude of plays during the subsequent years. Following his first hit, Le Voyageur Sans Bagage (1937), the Paris stage enjoyed a new Anouilh play nearly every season. His career as a playwright would eventually stretch over five decades.
Using a classification system based on George Bernard Shaw?s method of ?Plays Pleasant? and ?Plays Unpleasant,? Anouilh divided all of his published work into specific categories. The groups consisted of six types of ?pi?ces? (plays): ?pi?ces noires? represented the darkly tragic and realistic, ?pi?ces roses? the frothy and fantastical, ?pi?ces brilliantes? the bright, or glittering, ?pi?ces grin?antes? were set-your-teeth-on-edge grating, ?pi?ces costum?es? were historical costume dramas, and ?pi?ces baroque? were defined by Baroque elements.
In 1941, Eurydice (pi?ces noires) was produced for the first time at Th??tre de L?Atelier, Paris. The play was written during World War II, and its influence on Eurydice is clearly evident. It was Anouilh?s first use of Greek myth adaptation, reworking the ill-fated story of Orpheus and Eurydice into a modern setting. He would return to the Greek myth adaptations later with Antigone (1944) and M?d?e (1946). Jean-Paul Sartre (from whom Anouilh had adopted some of his existentialist views) advocated the significance of using myth in contemporary theatre. Sartre felt it was the dramatist?s duty to reinterprate classic myths in a way that could be understood by a modern audience thereby increasing and intensifying their reflections of their own condition and torments. Indeed, it appears that in Anouilh?s mind the story of Orph?e and Eurydice is the single true love story worthy of being told. In the Anouilh school, classic storybook endings of total contentment are deemed incomplete, or fashioned from fibs and compromise.
Despite its sober subject matter, Eurydice was a success in Paris. Seven years later, in 1948, it made its American premiere in Los Angeles at the Coronet Theater with a translation by Mel Ferrer. Critics and crowds alike seemed to receive the show kindly; and the production was of some note as it marked the American stage debut of Viveca Lindfors. Eurydice?s next destination was London. Under a different title, Point of Departure, and a new translation by Kitty Black, Eurydice opened in 1950 at the Lyric Theatre, then transferred its performances to the Globe Theatre (now known as the Gielgud). Eurydice found a welcome audience with the English, and the production achieved similar success as it had in Paris. One year later, 1951, Anouilh?s version of the Greek legend came to Manhattan to test the American palette a second time ? this time on the East Coast. Under yet another title, Legend of Lovers, Eurydice opened at the Plymouth Theater using the same Kitty Black translation as played in London. The production was produced by the prestigious and adventurous Theatre Guild and starred a young Richard Burton as Orpheus, Dorothy McGuire (returning to Broadway from Hollywood for the first time in ten years) as Eurydice and Hugh Griffith as Orpheus? father. Generally speaking, it was not well received ? though the cast was universally praised.
Thomas R. Dash of Women?s Wear Daily summed up the critic?s sentiment: ?To addicts of the naturalistic theatre, Legend of Lovers may sound like a lot of mumbo-jumbo; to those who have a feeling for the exotic and the unusual, it will be poetic gossamer, fanciful, imaginative, and stimulating.? Members of the ?mumbo-jumbo? guild were, unfortunately, plentiful. In spite of praise for Anouilh?s language (?artful and ambitious?highly provocative,? ? John McClain, the New York Journal-American ) the consensus was that Anouilh?s story was simply too dark and dreary for the American sensibility and the glittering lights of Broadway in the early 1950?s.
A revival eight years later, in 1959 at the 41st Street Theater, failed again to claim a mainstream audience ? with the critics even more divided than they were the first go round. The New York Mirror felt this production much better than the first. It had ?tender and stirring moments? and though the production was ?less slick than its predecessor,? it was ?more effective.? The Mirror also found the production?s new home in the intimate 41st Street Theatre served the play better then it had been served at the Plymouth. The New York Journal American, however, found the whole thing worse the second time around. Again, the performances were praised particularly the Orpheus of a young Ron Leibman and the Dulac of Edward Asner.
New York was not simply anti-Anouilh ? several of his plays thrived here, including The Rehearsal (La R?p?tition), The Lark (L?Alouette), Waltz of the Toreadors (La Valse des Tor?adors) and Becket, which won a Tony Award in 1959 and became a film in 1964 ? but Eurydice remained a relish unappreciated by the American pallet.
During the 1980?s, Anouilh dropped, for a time, his role as playwright and directed some of his own work as well as that of other writers. He also worked on adaptating and translating pieces by authors such as Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and Graham Greene. And he collaborated on many screenplays, directed two films, and wrote ballets.
Anouilh passed away from a heart attack at age 77 on October 3rd, 1987 in Switzerland. He was survived by his second wife, and four children ? one of whom is an actress.
TACT/New York City
PLAYS
Mandarine 1929
L'hermine 1931
J?zabel 1932
La mandarine 1933
La sauvage 1934
Y avait un prisonnier 1935
Le voyageur sans bagage, 1937
Le rendez-vous de senlis 1937
Le bal des voleurs 1938
La sauvage 1938
L?ocadia 1940
Eurydice 1941
Antigone 1944
Rom?o et Jeannette 1946
M?d?e 1946
L'invitation au ch?teau 1947
Ard?le, ou la Marguerite 1948
?pisode de la vie d'un auteur 1948
C?cile, ou l'?cole des p?res 1949
La r?p?tition 1950
Colombe 1951
La valse des tor?adors 1952
L'alouette 1953
Ornifle, ou le courant d'air 1955
Pauvre Bitos 1956
R?actionnaire amoureux 1959
Oreste 1959
La petite Moli?re 1959
Becket, ou L'honneur de Dieu 1959
Le songe du critique 1960
L'orchestre 1962
La grotte 1961
La foire D'empoigne 1962
Le boulanger, la boulang?re
et le petit mitron 1964
Cher antoine 1969
Ne r?veillez pas madame 1970
Les poissons rouges 1970
Le directeur de L'op?ra 1972
Tu ?tais si gentil quand tu ?tais petit 1972
Monsieur Barnett 1974
L'arrestation 1975
Le sc?nario 1976
Chers Zoiseaux 1976
Vive Henri IV, 1978
La culotte 1978
Le nombril 1981 |
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