Tag Archives: Eve Ponsonby

EURYDICE

โ˜…โ˜…

Jermyn Street Theatre

EURYDICE at Jermyn Street Theatre

โ˜…โ˜…

“Occasionally it feels as though the actors, lost in their own underworld, are making it up as they go along”

โ€œOrpheus was beginning to get very tired of sitting by his girlfriend on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice he had peeped into the book she was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Orpheus, ‘without pictures or conversation?โ€™

Apart from the name changes, the opening line of Lewis Carrollโ€™s โ€˜Aliceโ€™s Adventures in Wonderlandโ€™ would slot neatly into the stage directions of Sarah Ruhlโ€™s reimagining of โ€œEurydiceโ€. There is an almost childlike absurdism to the language. A kind of existential nonsense.

Eurydice and Orpheus are at the seaside: a couple of awkward teenagers, looking at life in different ways, but not really looking at each other. She is into her books; he just cares for his music. A bit of an odd couple. They donโ€™t come across as being madly in love with each other at all, so when Orpheus pops the question, it feels like another game.

Meanwhile, Eurydiceโ€™s dead father is preparing his wedding speech. He obviously canโ€™t attend the wedding, so he drops the letter down to earth, only for it to be picked up by the bowler-hatted, interesting yet sinister Lord of the Underworld. He picks up the letter, then promptly picks up Eurydice as she escapes her wedding party for a breath of fresh air. Eurydice follows him to his high-rise apartment where things get a bit uncomfortable. Tragedy strikes, and while Eurydice trips on the stairs to her death, the show itself plunges further into a rabbit hole of surrealism.

Ruhlโ€™s intention is to take the focus away from Orpheus and to tell the story through Eurydiceโ€™s perspective. She certainly gives her more stage time, but we remain somewhat confused as to whom we should be paying attention to. Eve Ponsonby reliably portrays Eurydice as a woman stuck between two different worlds, but the audience are lodged between differing viewpoints. She has crossed the River Lethe in the Underworld thereby forgetting her earthly existence, even her husbandโ€™s name. Her journey of love, loss and grief (although without the memory โ€“ what is there to grieve?) is one that she must take on her own, yet we cannot escape the prominence of the men. Especially her father, played with conviction by Dickon Tyrrell. Keaton Guimarรฃes-Tolleyโ€™s Orpheus is less secure and lacking passion. Joe Wiltshire Smith, as the Lord of the Underworld, has the most fun. Described as a nasty, interesting man, he is by far the most interesting character onstage. Not so much nasty as sinisterly bonkers. A warped Jimmy Clitheroe through the looking glass.

The narrative is underscored with interjections from the โ€˜stonesโ€™, played with a Pythonesque inanity by Katy Brittain, Tom Morley and Leyon Stolz-Hunter. Bizarrely dressed like creepy nuns, they are not so much a chorus but an echoing backing vocal. The timing of their delivery is often out of kilter, lending further banality to their presence – which we had already begun to question.

Director Stella Powell-Jones bravely takes on all the idiosyncrasies of the script but, even at under an hour and a half, the story still drags – weighed down further by its inconsistencies. Occasionally it feels as though the actors, lost in their own underworld, are making it up as they go along. We do wonder what world Ruhl is creating, and while we admire the ideas that shape her interpretation of โ€œEurydiceโ€, we are not truly inspired to dig deeper. Curiouser and curiouser we arenโ€™t.


EURYDICE at Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 8th October 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Alex Brenner

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

LAUGHING BOY | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | May 2024
THE LONELY LONDONERS | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | March 2024
TWO ROUNDS | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | February 2024
THE BEAUTIFUL FUTURE IS COMING | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | January 2024
OWNERS | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…ยฝ | October 2023
INFAMOUS | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | September 2023
SPIRAL | โ˜…โ˜… | August 2023
FARM HALL | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | March 2023
LOVE ALL | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | September 2022
CANCELLING SOCRATES | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | June 2022
ORLANDO | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | May 2022
FOOTFALLS AND ROCKABY | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | November 2021

EURYDICE

EURYDICE

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

A Dead Body in Taos

A Dead Body in Taos

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

Wilton’s Music Hall

A DEAD BODY IN TAOS at the Wilton’s Music Hall

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

A Dead Body in Taos

“Rachel Bagshawโ€™s direction moves the action backwards and forwards with an efficient pace and energy, but we do occasionally get bogged down in explanation”

 

โ€œWhen they called saying your body had been found, I had one immediate thought. I remember thinking that maybe now Iโ€™d be freeโ€. These are the first words that Sam (Gemma Lawrence) speaks to her mother Kath (Eve Ponsonby) in over three years. Sam has just arrived in the small town of Taos in the New Mexico desert to identify the body. The freedom to which Sam is referring is obviously emotional rather than physical as there seems to have been little communication between mother and daughter up to this point. Nevertheless, Sam would still be seeking some sort of closure, and conversations with the deceased are often consoling.

Not so for Sam. Sheโ€™s not talking to a corpse, but a mechanical representation of her mother aged thirty-five, into which her motherโ€™s memories, emotions and biographical data have been uploaded. But sadly, not a lot of her personality. Artificial Intelligence has been taken to its technological, moral and unsettling extreme and we are invited to question the nature of death and human consciousness. But before we have much of a chance, we are whisked back to Kathโ€™s student days where there is much talk about the 1968 protests, Vietnam, Cambodia and changing the world. In writer David Farrโ€™s world, it is peopled with caricatures whose urgency and fervour seem to be being lampooned. The link to the present is a touch tenuous, but on the stage the two settings are constantly rubbing shoulders with each other in the revolving doors of a confusing narrative. We are not really sure where to invest our interest.

The dichotomy suits Sam though. Gemma Lawrence is a very watchable presence, particularly when she begins to thaw and engage with her motherโ€™s posthumous identity. Initially outraged, she warms to the idea and we, in turn, warm to the general theme of the piece. Farr explores the flip side of Artificial Intelligence. The Future Life Corporation, where Kath is recreated, focuses on the โ€˜unintelligenceโ€™. The flaws that make us human. Itโ€™s not just about synthesising data, but also the false hopes, the self-delusion; the layers of deception inherent in us all. The mess and the chaos. And the unspoken love.

It is a very wordy, and at times worthy, play. Rachel Bagshawโ€™s direction moves the action backwards and forwards with an efficient pace and energy, but we do occasionally get bogged down in explanation. The use of surtitles is questionable and sometimes distracting and unnecessary. The performances cannot be faulted. Eve Ponsonbyโ€™s Kath seamlessly flits from her ardent past to the robotic present, and Clara Onyemereโ€™s portrayal of Tristana Cortez – the humanely pragmatic supervisor at the Future Life Corporation – is one of the highlights of the evening.

The crux of the issues remains unanswered โ€“ as they probably always will be. โ€œHow do you create a person who has no idea who they are?โ€ asks Cortez. โ€œA Dead Body in Taosโ€, despite containing some insightful dialogue, doesnโ€™t quite know what it is either. Like some of the scenes there are too many voices vying to be heard. We long to have our focus tied to a stronger lead. Perhaps that is the reason behind the surtitles after all.

 

Reviewed on 27th October 2022

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Murray

 

Wilton's Music Hall thespyinthestalls

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Roots | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | October 2021
The Child in the Snow | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | December 2021
The Ballad of Maria Marten | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…ยฝ | February 2022
Starcrossed | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | June 2022
Patience | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | August 2022

 

 

Click here to read all our latest reviews