The last time I heard the story of Eurydice and Orpheus I was in Mythology 101 at the University of Minnesota. I was probably a Sophomore. Couple years ago. Anyway, I had my little sister with me who, at the time, was maybe 10 or 11? She's quite a bit younger than me. My mom liked to drop her off for the day to hang with me so she could get some things done, and I definitely didn't mind It was fun to haul my sister along, particularly if it was a great big lecture hall class where no one even knew there was a stealth student. However, on that particular day my sister asked if she could have a box of Lemonheads.
"You'll drop them," I said.
"I will not," my sister replied.
"You will," I said.
"I won't," she replied.
I caved and bought her the Lemonheads. I would have wanted them, and I'm a softy.
So we're in Mythology 101 and it's the day where we're talking about heroes visiting Hades/Hell. The prof is going on for a while about Orpheus and how he made inanimate objects weep and the gates of hell opened for his music, it was simply that beautiful. He's leading Eurydice out of Hades and he's nailing it; he's going to get his wife back. But then, what does Orpheus hear....what gives him pause... but the tumble of dozens of Lemonheads rolling down the floor of hell behind him. Of course he looks back. And loses Eurydice forever.
The timing was perfect. It was the moment that Orpheus pauses, the whole auditorium was quiet for a moment, and then the sound of Lemonheads rolling for what seemed like a full minute as all the other students tried to figure out what was going on and potentially whether it was part of the story.
In the play, all I could think about when I saw the rocks [who were actors] and the rocks' shadows [also actors] was that they could have cast them as Lemonheads instead.
The play focused on forgetting and remembering and love and which parts of love last and which simply fade away. Eurydice - Eva Gemlo - did a particularly good job.
No comments:
Post a Comment