Greek mythology meets #MeToo

The Greek myth of “Orpheus and Euridice” is a story about the power of music and love in times of great suffering.

But Anna Montgomery, who plays Euridice, is turning the classic on its heels with a reinterpretation set in the #MeToo movement. Instead of Euridice being bitten by a snake and descending into the underworld, she is a victim of a sexual assault and her world turns into a personal hell.

A two-part song cycle, the FRIB production is based on the composition and poetry of Ricky Ian Gordon. He wrote his own version of “Orpheus” in 2005 based on his relationship with partner, Jeffrey Gossi, who died of AIDS in 1996.

“Over the summer, I got to be in New York City for a couple of months doing programs up there. My teacher Melanie Helton connected me with the composer and I got to meet with him and talk about it,” Montgomery said. “He told me to tell this story and do this piece, I had to find my own story of loss.”

Montgomery’s story is based on her experience with sexual assault.

“I am a survivor and I’ve been looking for a way to process through that artistically without literally having to tell my story to the world,” she said.

Performance enables the community to learn about the #MeToo movement and the people behind it without narrowing things down to shocking details, facts and numbers, she added.

The interpretation also tells the story of how Orpheus deals with Euridice’s sexual assault. Plot twist: Orpheus has no lines in this production.

“When you are facing loss, what can you do with words?” Montgomery said. “To me, that translates to the fact that the clarinetist is Orpheus and his communication is solely through music,” said Davies.

Clarinetist Sam Davies plays Orpheus, communicating the thrills of new love and innocence lost through music. Davies is a doctoral student at Michigan University and plays with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra.

Accompanying Davies and Montgomery is pianist Ling Lo and actor Peter Boylan. Lo plays the piano instead of speaking, representing the silence of witnesses to sexual assault, Montgomery said. Boylan plays Orpheus’ best friend and the perpetrator.

Color will also play a large role. In Gordon’s composition, Euridice first appears before Orpheus in a yellow dress.

“To me, the color yellow has come to represent innocence and the vibrancy of their relationship, the vibrancy of new love and discovery,” the director said.

After the assault happens, Montgomery will don a teal dress — the official color of the national sexual assault movement.

“You know, after a sexual assault, you don’t die, but the world as you know it around you completely changes,” she added.

The original Greek myth ends in tragedy, as most Greek mythology does. Orpheus fails to rescue his wife from Hades and wanders the world until he is killed by the women of Thrace. Curiously, they keep his head so it can continue to sing and bring music into the world.

“Through all that suffering, the world gets music. The world gets stories. The world gets beauty. And the world is nothing without those,” Montgomery said.

“The victims aren’t only those who suffer from sexual assault, it is those who love them as well, which affects our society as a whole. We all, culturally, have to think about this. We have to think about these things for solutions to come.”

"Orpheus and Euridice"

Friday, April 26 at 5:30 p.m.

1300 FRIB Laboratory

640 S. Shaw Ln., East Lansing

(517) 355-9672

frib.msu.edu/gateway/index.html