Last night's Brussels production of Orphee aux Enfers was frighteningly bad. What is it with Eurotrash directors who prove completely incompetent directors and who in the fat hell hires them? And why?
Orphee aux Enfers is a rude sex farce: Music teacher Orpheus hates his wife Eurydice, who's having a fling with the local shepherd/honey vendor Aristeus. Orpheus plantrs poisoned snakes in the cornfield separating their houses and Eurydice gets bitten and dies. Aristeus turns out to be the god Pluto, who carries Eurydice off to hell. Orpheus is delighted until the harridan Public Opinion shows up and demands he follow her to Olympus to demand she be returned to him. He doesn't want to but he's a slave to Public Opinion. On Olympus the gods are sick of nectar and ambrosia and being bossed around by Jupiter, who - having heard what a beauty Eurydice is - decides to take all the gods and goddesses to hell with Orpheus and check oput the deceased wife. In the underworld, Eurydice is sick of Aristeus and bored, so when Jupiter shows up, she's interested in following him back to Olympus.
A production should be funny and sexy. The Brussels production had a lot of faux fornication and ugly sets and costumes. Olympus looked like a hotel restaurant, the gods were all dressed in haute couture evening dress, hell looked like a war zone. The men playing Orpheus and Aristeus/Pluto were good, and Elizabeth Vidal was fantastic as Eurydice. I'd give it 0.5 stars out of 5.0.
