The San Joaquin Delta College Arts & Communication Division presents their own production of “Eurydice,” a play originally written by Sarah Ruhl.
The play was showing at the Alfred H. Muller Studio Theatre from March 9-12, is directed by Ashlee Temple and stars a fantastic cast of Delta students.
The play is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but with a modern spin and taken from the perspective of the wife, Eurydice.
On the night of Orpheus and Eurydice’s wedding an interesting man, played by J. Joseph Aguilera, approaches Eurydice telling her that he has a letter from her deceased father. Curious, Eurydice, played by Julia Moran, follows the man to the top of a tall building, steals the letter from him and falls to her death. In the Underworld, Eurydice meets her father, played by Mike Sicari, who teaches her how to speak again after she forgot how when bathed in the River Styx. Orpheus, played by Donald Lacy, mourns the loss of his wife until he makes his way to the Underworld to meet the Lord of the Underworld, also played by J. Joseph Aguilera, asking to bring his wife back to the living world.
The play was overall underwhelming, but the actors made the experience tolerable.
Julia Moran, who played the main character of Eurydice, was a very emotional, believable actor nearing the end of the performance. For the first half of the play she sounded far too high-pitched in her delivery, this caused most of her lines to fall flat and emotionless. She did make up for this with her excellent facial expressions which carried her performance for the entire second half of the play.
Donald Lacy played the lead male role of Orpheus in his outstanding Delta Drama debut. Throughout the performance Lacy did an excellent job of delivering his lines to his wife with extra special care and love. In the first scene of the play he does speak so softly that some lines couldn’t be heard very well and his physical acting in the opening scene could use some fluidity. Lacy still ended up being a convincing man in mourning for his entire performance.
Mike Sicari, who played Eurydice’s unnamed father, was easily the most consistent actor on stage. While his makeup was reduced to being as simple as sharpie marks on his forehead, Sicari played the part of a lonely old man very well. Sicari projected a gravely old man voice for his performance that still allowed him to portray some heartfelt dad emotions.
Joseph Aguilera definitely stole the show with his performance as the “interesting man,” and the Lord of the Underworld. At first Aguilera gave a very hammy performance in his two scenes as the interesting man. His overacting combined with Moran’s underacting made the first act of the play extremely unbearable. But, as the Lord of the Underworld, Aguilera really took stride as a comedic character combining a hammier performance with less serious lines to astounding results.
Seeing the potential in these young actors is worth the price of admission alone, thankfully, because the play itself is extremely dull.
A majority of the play is spent jumping between Eurydice and her father reminiscing in the Underworld and Orpheus writing letters of sorrow to Eurydice. There are only a few good eventful scenes in the whole play, one of them being the main character dying.
Many people must have thought this was very boring since the program says on the second page: “There will be one ten-minute intermission.” Although there was no intermission forcing everybody to stay in their seats for the whole play.
If you’re interested in seeing what Delta Drama has to offer they’re putting on a performance of “Avenue Q,” opening May 7-13.