James Al-Shamma in his book, Sarah Ruhl: A Critical Study of the Plays, looks at Eurydice through the four elements: fire, air, water and earth. He says the play makes a downward arc from the highest to the lowest and assigns the following meaning and people to the elements:
Fire: Art or the artistic temperament.
This is Orpheus. He is passionate. He offers Eurydice “the sky and the stars,” and Eurydice associates him with the moon. You might say his head is in the clouds.
Air: Life
Air occupies the space below fire. Air is breath and breath is life. The Stones teach that the language of the dead is silent – like dirt, like pores. Much of life in the play is connected with language – singing, speaking, memories and stories – all of which the Stones discourage. The Shakespeare quote Father reads to Eurydice has King Lear comparing himself and Cordelia to birds in a cage. “Eurydice and her father, also suffer as trapped creatures of the air.”[1] Air most describes Eurydice and her Father.
Water: Grieving and Forgetting
Water is seen and heard and referenced throughout the entire play. Orpheus grieves for Eurydice through a dream where the lovers fall from the sky into a lake of salty tears; Eurydice is always thirsty; the Stones weep. And in some of the most iconic moments of the play, water is the cause and metaphor of forgetting. The Stones fit here; they are the guardians and supervisors of forgetting.
Earth: Death
Under water is earth. The Nasty Interesting Man and the Lord of the Underworld are both found here. The N/I Man is associated with farming with big hands like potatoes that can carry a cow in labor. The Lord of the Underworld grows downward like a turnip. He promised a wedding with a dirt-filled orchestra.
We see the downward arc of Eurydice three times throughout the play: In the opening scene Orpheus describes how Eurydice’s hair will become an instrument that will carry her into the air, to which Eurydice asks, won’t I fall when the song is over? Orpheus replies that the water-filled clouds will soften her fall. Then Eurydice falls to her death from a high-rise apartment, down 600 stairs to the Underworld. Lastly, we have Orpheus’ dream, in which the lovers topple off of Mt. Olympus. This time the clouds instead of cushioning their fall, are sharp-edged and cutting. They land in a salty lake.
Looking at the story through the four elements is intriguing. It brings new symbols and threads to the conversation. Maybe all our journeys arc through the four elements: the passion of youth, learning the art of living through the middle years, the grieving and then forgetting (finding peace?) of old age and then finally… death. Maybe they are the seasons and threads of life.
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