The evening of Saturday, Nov. 2, my roommate and I trekked to 200 High St., home to Movement House and the Eclectic Society, to see our second student-written play of the weekend. The student theater powerhouse Spike Tape presented their first production of the Fall 2024 semester, “After Eurydice,” written and directed by Liv Snow ’25 and co-directed by Abigail Grauer ’27.
“After Eurydice” explored themes of grief and loss, love and loneliness, and hope and despair through a series of vignettes that show the lives of various characters from Greek mythology some time after the climactic moments of their stories. The stories borrowed from Greek mythology in the show included those of Orpheus and Eurydice, Icarus and Daedalus, Echo and Ameinias, Midas of Phrygia, Atalanta and Hippomenes, Prometheus, and Galatea and Pygmalion.
Grauer found herself drawn to the show’s complex themes as well as its clever interpretation of Greek mythology and decided to join the project as a first-time director.
“Liv Snow showed me a script she had been working on and I fell head over heels in love; I’m a sucker for everything Greek myth, retelling old stories, and especially a happy ending,” Grauer wrote in an email to The Argus. “I read maybe three pages before I had already agreed to direct.”
Grauer and writer/co-director Snow seized the opportunity to assemble a large cast for the play, hoping to give many students (including several first-year students) the opportunity to be a part of bringing an original play to life for the first time, especially as student-written theater makes up a huge aspect of the arts scene on campus.
“I realized that having vignettes could allow us to include more people in the show, and I really wanted to give everyone the chance to be a part of a show so meaningful to me,” Grauer wrote. “I did want to make good art that would feel meaningful to an audience, but more than anything I wanted the cast and crew to enjoy themselves and engage in the joy of making art even if it’s just for you.”
“After Eurydice” began with a haunting rendition of the song “Seikilos Epitaph,” performed in Greek by the show’s ensemble cast. The beautiful, slow lament set the tone for the play’s reflective discussions of love, life, and loss.
“‘After Eurydice’ features a song called the ‘Seikilos Epitaph,’ the oldest whole musical composition,” the director’s note in the program reads. “The tune and lyrics were found on the tomb of a 1st or 2nd century CE woman, the adored wife of a man named Seikilos. The song is a reflection of the complexities of the human condition, as well as the weight borne by the mourners of a loved one.”
Fittingly, directly after the song, the first vignette features Orpheus (Natalie Piergrossi ’28), still mourning the loss of his beloved wife, Eurydice, four years after her death. Vanna (Nadia Moosa ’28), a friend who has taken care of Orpheus in the wake of tragedy, chides him to eat, sleep, wash his face, and take walks in nature, hoping that he’ll be able to return to a relatively normal life. The two ultimately have a heart-to-heart, reflecting on the struggles of grief and figuring out how to move on.
Most of the vignettes took on a similar structure, with two characters on stage discussing situations in their lives surrounding grief, heartbreak, and loss; each with its own perspective on these complicated themes. The second vignette centered on Daedalus (Ezekiel Allman ’27) who, in his old age, has become something of a hermit, not wanting to engage with the rest of the world after the loss of his son, Icarus. His caretaker, Anatolius (Lauren Schweitzer ’27), initially pushes back against Daedalus’s desire to isolate himself, but soon learns to care for him by stepping into the role that Icarus held and starting to learn the family business.
Next, having been rejected by Narcissus, Ameinias (Liam Jarvis ’28) flees to a cave to take his own life. There, he meets Echo (Phoebe Levitsky ’26). Although she’s only able to repeat his own words back to him, Echo shares her own experience of lost love. The two commiserate and find themselves laughing through the pain.
In the play’s only single-character scene, Midas (Lena Weiman ’25) laments the monotony of his life since being gifted (or, cursed, depending on your perspective) with the ability to turn everything he touches into gold. Weiman delivered an unforgettable monologue, detailing the tribulations of a life without connection to other people.
The next vignette featured Atalanta (Abrielle Belisle ’25) and Hippomenes (Francisca Wijaya ’27) as they try to overcome Atalanta’s fear of physical intimacy through the deep love that they share. This was followed by a vignette showing Prometheus (Adam Mohn ’26) trying to reason with the vultures that eat his liver daily as punishment from the gods for sharing fire with humans. The vultures, Haliaetus (Marcos Arjona ’26) and Aegypius (Angelina Reddy ’25), reluctantly engage in this back-and-forth for the entire course of their “meal,” only to come back to maintain their routine the next day.
Next, Galatea (Shriya Sakalkale ’28) shows up to Pygmalion’s workshop to confront him about the way he treats her. Pygmalion (Simon Levin Holland ’28), a sculptor who created Galatea and fell in love with her while she was still a statue, ignores Galatea’s demands to treated like a person, rather than an object, and finds a new muse in her friend, Maia (Gillian Churchland ’28).
“After Eurydice” ends with Orpheus alone on stage once again, reading his own eulogy, describing how he found hope after Eurydice’s passing through the support of friends and family, which gave him the will to continue living. At last, in the afterlife, he is reunited with his love. Grauer hopes that the audience left the show carrying this final message with them.
“There is hope for love, for kindness, for you,” Grauer wrote. “As big as the world may seem, as endless and as terrifying, there are people out there who love you and who will help you get through it. You are not alone.”
Sulan Bailey can be reached at sabailey@wesleyan.edu.