The cast of “Sonnets to Orpheus” smiles for a photo after a successful dress rehearsal at Parker B. Poe Theater in Newcastle on Monday, March 10. The show itself does not feature many smiles as it depicts the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice as interpreted by Austrian poet Rainer Rilke, again interpreted by Lincoln Academy students in an original one-act play. (Photo courtesy Jenny Mayer/Lincoln Academy)
Lincoln Academy students venture into the underworld and the depths of the human psyche in the original one-act play “Sonnets to Orpheus,” which premieres Friday, March 14 at Parker B. Poe Theater in Newcastle.
In the 1920s, a poet with writer’s block retreated to a Swiss château to work on his magnum opus. Before completing his “Duino Elegies,” Rainer Maria Rilke composed “Sonnets to Orpheus,” a collection of 55 poems. Rilke saw himself in Orpheus, a man doomed to mourn his lost love for all time.
More than a century later, LA students composed their own production based on Rilke’s sonnets, drawing from previous student productions, Ovid’s version of Orpheus’s tale and a psychological analysis of Rilke’s writings.
The production does a lot with a little, starting with converting several short poems into a 50-minute play. A rope and some rods become a ferry, five veiled faces become the lord of the underworld. A young woman dies without uttering a word, a muse rises and dances through Rilke’s mind with few lines of her own.
The fairly bare stage depicts three worlds at once: Rilke’s study on one side, the Myth World represented by large gates on the other, and a large blank space in between which becomes the stage-within-a-stage for Rilke’s psyche as he imagines the myth and himself as Orpheus.
LA senior Sophia Scott’s original music provides an entire ethereal soundscape with minimal tools: a strumming bass note builds tension in a scene in Rilke’s study; in the underworld, wordless vocalizations embody millions of unseen souls.
The story proceeds in parallel, laying out Orpheus’s myth in scenes interspersed with scenes set in Rilke’s real life.
Having lost his love forever, Orpheus, portrayed by Natalie Friel, holds a lyre and ponders fate and future in a scene from “Sonnets to Orpheus,” which opens Friday, March 14 at the Parker B. Poe Theater in Newcastle. (Photo courtesy Jenny Mayer/Lincoln Academy)
Rilke is compelled to write, pushing his body to complete the work his mind has set out. Rilke’s doctor pleads with him to slow his pace, but Rilke is a man possessed. Having finally broken through his writer’s block, Rilke will not stop until he is depleted. “Deprive me of my writing and I am finished,” Rilke says.
After Orpheus’s beloved Eurydice is killed on their wedding day, Orpheus travels through the underworld to confront Hades and demand her return to life. While Orpheus clings to the adage “love is stronger than death,” the play counters “death is longer than love.”
Heartwood Regional Theater Co. Artistic Director Griff Braley always loved the myth of Orpheus and he had a passing familiarity with Rilke. When Braley read Rilke’s cycle of poems “Sonnets to Orpheus” several years ago, he immediately thought “there’s a play here.” In fall 2008, Braley tasked his students with turning Rilke’s life and sonnets into a script.
Around a selection of a dozen sonnets, Braley’s students wrote a one act play with a “real Jungian analysis,” Braley said, which led to very mythical, fairy land-looking play. The production scored very well with Maine Drama Festival judges.
The next year, the returning students wanted to perform the play again, but they also wanted to do the work of studying Rilke, which led to a new script for the show.
Braley originally planned to produce “Hadestown,” a musical based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, for the late winter production. A shortage of singing performers prevented a full casting. Braley brought the two “Sonnets to Orpheus” scripts to his students. In turn, they studied Rilke, the sonnets, and the myths of Orpheus.
“We started workshopping it and found a third script,” Braley said. “It’s a deep dive.”
Then they had to make it happen in a nine-person ensemble. Braley said those boundaries became a way to feed the show artistically.
“It was a fun experiment, it tightened the play tremendously,” he said.
Rilke did not write in order, Braley said, but as he was inspired by various points in the myth. Rilke composed sonnets based on making connections between his own life with Orpheus’ life.
Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, played by Lincoln Academy student Elias Bassett, composes sonnets while inspired by his muse and surrounded by the voices in his head, during a rehearsal of Heartwood Theater Co.’s original one-act play in Newcastle on Monday, March 10. (Photo courtesy Jenny Mayer/Lincoln Academy)
While based around the sonnets, the production takes artistic license in cutting ill-fitting stanzas, using only part of sonnets, and moving sonnets out of Rilke’s order to better suit a chronological story.
Braley claims only two pieces of original writing: the interactions of an imagined physician who served both the Knoop family and Rilke, and Rilke’s monologue about his writing. An ironic sense of humor slips through in those moments. The doctor describes Rilke’s battle with writer’s block: “Isn’t that the real work of writers, to struggle?”
Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. the evenings of March 14 and March 20-22. A 2 p.m. matinee is scheduled for Saturday, March 15. Tickets are $5 for students and $20 for adults. For more information, call the box office at 563-1373 or email info@heartwoodtheater.org.
