Little Fish’s “Eurydice” a Rare Piece of Perfectly Executed Theatre

It may be impolite to say, but rare are trips to the theatre when you don’t see obvious production flaws. It may be a weak link in the cast or the director’s letting them all shout or simply recite their lines at each other without listening. It may be props or blocking that explicitly conflict with the script. It may be flat or awkward sound or lighting cues.

Little Fish Theatre’s staging of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is one of those outliers where everything is done right. If you don’t like this show, it’s because of the script — but this comes down more to taste than any great failings on the playwright’s part.

Eurydice (Jacqueline Misaye), a lover of books and all things “interesting,” loves and is beloved by Orpheus (Brendan Kane), who’s always got music in his head so fine that it makes the stones weep. In the Underworld, Eurydice’s father (Don Schlossman) —one of the few dead people who recall how to read and write — composes a letter bullet-pointing the speech he would give on her wedding day. The letter is subsequently found above ground by a man (Marc Leclerc) who baits Eurydice away from the reception and ultimately to her death, where she’s reunited with her father. Meanwhile, Orpheus mourns and schemes for a way to get her back, and . . . well, if you know your Greek mythology, you know how this is going to end.

That Ruhl hasn’t tied herself to the myth’s details proves both liberating and problematic. Eurydice is certainly not a straightforward redux of the Orpheus tale, nor simply the shopworn convention of retelling a male-focused story from the female point of view. Rather, Ruhl builds upon the myth’s foundation with blocks of her own invention, including unique plot elements and a “chorus of stones.”

The problems come where Ruhl has neglected to construct new bricks or properly hew preexisting ones to keep her edifice from showing gaps. How, for example, is her father’s letter on Earth (as opposed to the many, many others he’s written her), and how does this man randomly (?) happen by when Eurydice is alone (she has to leave the reception area to get herself a drink of water?) and also just happen to come across the letter? Nothing in the original myth informs this, leaving these as two among several occasionally significant holes or inconsistencies that apparently we are meant simply to ignore. Great writing doesn’t demand such soft focus.

But it’s not as if Ruhl is awful, and there’s plenty to like here, including a few beautiful turns of phrase. Take Eurydice’s description of Orpheus’s reaction to seeing her death: “His eyes were two black birds and they flew to me. I said no — stay where you are — he needs you to see!”

This show, though, exceeds its source material. In the title role, Misaye is particularly winning once she gets to the Underworld, and the tender dynamic between her and Schlossman —equally responsible for their rapport — plays up one of the best things Ruhl created from whole cloth. Kane and Leclerc (whose main role is Lord of the Underworld, although the program fails to note that he’s double-cast, which may cause confusion regarding who finds the above-referenced letter) each bend their dynamic energy to the needs of the moment, including physical adroitness that pays off even in subtler moments. Then there’s Colbert Alembert, Esther Mira, and Shirley Ritter-Hatton as Big Stone, Little Stone, and Loud Stone (respectively), who mine their unusual roles for all the comedy and presence they’re worth.

Director Tara Donovan is on top of literally every production aspect. Yeah, she’s got a good cast, but it cannot be overstated how good actors can go bad with improper guidance. Here, every syllable is dialed in. Actors take their time with their lines, they exchange real energy, and they’re present in each moment, however conversational or fantastical. Same goes for the movement (credit here also to choreographer Amanda Karr), as everything and body always finds its right place and rhythm.

The mise en scène is no less impressive. Lo-tech though Little Fish is, Aaron Francis and Joyce Hunter’s simple set build does the job, especially as highlighted by Gregory Crafts’s meticulous lighting design. Little Fish doesn’t have much in the way of a lighting grid, but by titrating just the right potion of filters, angles, and cues, Crafts conjures visual magic. If you don’t always notice, it’s only because of how embedded each element is in the logic of the whole.

Fault can be found with the script, and taste is always subjective; but technically, literally everything comes together in this Eurydice — and that alone is worth the price of admission.

Eurydice at Little Fish Theatre

Times: Fri.-Sat. 8:00 p.m. + Sun. 2 p.m.
The show runs through September 4

Cost: $20-$30

Details: (310) 512-6030, littlefishtheatre.com

Venue: 777 Centre St., San Pedro