"I would have called it Bill's In The Bathroom," my boyfriend joked as we walked out of the Jewel Box Theatre on Saturday night after a performance of Eurydice Descending, presented in conjunction with the Midtown International Theater Festival. Chuckling, we fell back into a stony and contemplative silence. Comic asides felt like the only way to proceed after a play of such a rare emotional caliber that it left the audience speechless and the lead actress emoting to the point of quite genuine tears which continued into her curtain call.
But I'm starting from the end, and that's no way to go about things. Eurydice Descending, written by Karin Fazio Littlefield and directed by Roark Littlefield, starts from the bottom, with a grey-clad woman, hunched over, sharpening an axe on a stone. A startling image in any context, with a minimal stage design there is little to suggest contemporary time period except for Ugg slippers and a cellphone sitting on the table, center stage. This is Wendy, played fearlessly and wholeheartedly by Gloria Lamoureux, and she has a strange secret -- a secret which messily comes tumbling out when Marjorie, the cloying and nosy neighbor played by Dianne Diep with a strange (British?) speech affectation that may or may not have been an intentional choice, forces her way into the house and won't leave. Wendy and her husband, Bill, haven't been showing up to their usual social engagements, and it isn't because Bill is away on business. No, as telltale cellphone text 'dings' reveal, Bill has locked himself in the bathroom and he won't come out.
Diep does a great job as the overly concerned, but far from altruistic busy-body, who is a crucial catalyst for revelation. As she leaves, she endears herself with her earnest and honest promise to "try" not to spill the juicy gossip. And gossip it is, because though we are left to ponder the situation, has Bill actually broken any laws? While his choice is odd, abrupt, and unexplained, staying in your own bathroom and refusing to speak is no crime on the books. She also leaves us and Wendy (and Bill if he's listening) with a concerned but caustic reminder, "we have to live in society, don't we?"
What unfolds in the following three acts is a truly disturbing and heart wrenching meditation on loneliness, communication, and the bonds in a relationship. Wendy defends Bill; she loves him deeply, and for years the two of them have been partners in crime. That the two of them have grown into middle age, given up on some dreams that seemed to pass them by, and "failed", if you will, to conceive any children, hasn't seemed to change the love they share. But something snapped in Bill, and though he texts often to say that he misses her, he can't bring himself to leave the bathroom, and it's going on several months now. How does he survive in such a small prison of his own making? Why, Wendy of course, who unflaggingly feeds him through a hole in the bottom of the door, and, we must assume, attends to his other needs as well (someone has to be buying new toilet paper, right?).
That is why I would argue that this is a ferociously feminist play, which wants to take a close look at the duties of a modern relationship and explore our continued gender roles. You don't have to wander far from real life to find absurd happenings, as this relationship proves. Bill's has retreated, cutting off communication except for the occasional texts which mysteriously and conveniently cease whenever Wendy wants real answers. And Wendy is forced to carry on, performing her wifely duties without any return or thanks. She cooks, she cleans, she mills about the kitchen, growing more and more restless. Her fortieth birthday passes. No Bill. Pizza boys come to deliver food to the window, spreading rumors about "the shrew who has her husband locked up." So when her temperature truly rises, and she finally directs a tempest of anger towards her holed up husband, it feels like a heavenly thunderstorm after months of undeserved patience and restraint.
Scene changes, which move Wendy through a variety of outfits and seasons (white roses wilt cruelly to pass the time), are tender and graceful, with Marjorie coming onstage to help Wendy strip bare and dress again, eventually into a sultry red dress for the climax. It's a testament to the remarkable restraint of Lamoureux and playwright Karin Fazio Littlefield that Eurydice is able to get to the point of shouting and table-tossing drama without ever becoming overwrought, and Lamoureux plays Wendy, talking and talking to a partner who won't answer, marvelously, subtly, achingly.
Overall, the play is a chilling and poignant testament to love, partnership, aging, and the way we communicate in our heavily technological day and age. Like Wendy with her axe, I sense that Ms. Littlefield is sharpening her skills, and I have no doubt that we can expect to see more powerful work from her in the future.
Eurydice Descending was presented as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. For more on MITF productions, click here.
