Eurydice

Act One

We meet two lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice, on a beach. They’re young and helplessly, deeply in love. However, Eurydice is frustrated that Orpheus’s mind always seems to be elsewhere: he hears music in his head, represented by a spirit double or Daemon, invisible to Eurydice. Orpheus proposes by playfully tying string around Eurydice’s ring finger. She says yes.

In the Underworld, Eurydice’s father—who has recently died—writes her a letter, offering fatherly advice for her wedding day. He laments that he doesn’t know how to get his letters to her.

At their wedding, Orpheus and Eurydice dance. Eurydice finds the party overwhelming. She says she’s feeling warm, and steps outside to find a drink of water. Alone outside, Eurydice realizes how much she misses her father. At that moment, a mysterious man appears, claiming that he has a letter from her father, but that she must follow him to his penthouse apartment to retrieve it.

At his apartment, the man gives Eurydice champagne and puts on terrible mood music. He does not give her the letter. Eurydice realizes she’s made a terrible mistake and turns to leave. The man reveals the letter. Eurydice recognizes her father’s handwriting. She tries to grab the letter and run away, but she trips. She falls down hundreds of stairs, into the Underworld, to her death.

Act Two

In the Underworld, we meet three Stones (Little Stone, Big Stone, and Loud Stone), obnoxious bureaucratic guardians of the land of the dead, who serve as a kind of Greek chorus. They explain that Eurydice has died, and that, as a dead person, she will lose her memory and the power of language.

Eurydice arrives in the Underworld in a raining elevator. When she is doused with the waters of this alternate Lethe, she loses her memory. When she steps out of the elevator, her father greets her. Eurydice has no idea who he is. Her father tries to make her comfortable.

In the world above, Orpheus mourns Eurydice’s death. He writes her a letter, but does not know how to get it to her.

In the Underworld, the Father builds a room out of string for Eurydice. A letter falls from the sky. The Father reads it and tells Eurydice it is from Orpheus. The name “Orpheus” triggers something in Eurydice, and she begins to remember who she is. She finally recognizes her father.

Orpheus slowly lowers the collected works of Shakespeare into the underworld on a string. The Father reads to Eurydice from King Lear. Eurydice begins to learn language again, word by word.

Orpheus resolves to find a way to get to the Underworld and bring Eurydice back.

In the Underworld, the Stones hear Orpheus singing wordlessly as he approaches the gates. Distressed, the Stones call their boss, Hades. When he appears, it is revealed that he was also the man who lured Eurydice to her death.

Intermission

Act Three

Orpheus and his Daemon sing at the gates of the Underworld, pleading to be let in. Hades appears and dismissively informs him of the rules for bringing Eurydice back to the world above. She can follow him, but he must not look back to make sure she is there.

Eurydice is torn between following Orpheus and staying with her father. Her father insists that she follow Orpheus and live out her life in the world above.

When she sees Orpheus up ahead, Eurydice is afraid, not convinced that it’s really him. She follows, but eventually rushes toward him and calls his name. Orpheus turns around, startled. The lovers are slowly, helplessly pulled apart.

The Father is desolate that Eurydice is gone. In despair, he decides to dip himself in the river of forgetfulness and obliterate his memory. He quietly speaks the directions to his childhood home and lowers himself into the water.

Eurydice returns to the Underworld and finds, to her horror, that her father has dipped himself in the river. Hades reappears to claim her as his bride. She asks for a moment to prepare herself.

She finds a pen in her father’s coat pocket and writes a letter to Orpheus, with instructions for his future wife on how to take care of him. She dips herself in the river of forgetfulness.

The elevator descends once again. In it is Orpheus. He sees Eurydice lying on the ground. He recognizes her and is happy. But the elevator rains on Orpheus, obliterating his memory. He steps out of the elevator. He finds the letter Eurydice wrote to him. He does not know how to read it, and his music has deserted him. We end in silence.