In Ruhl's play, it's Eurydice's fault: she calls Orpheus' name, he turns, and it's over - she dies again, and returns to Hades, where she is reunited with her beloved father.

Is Ruhl saying that dead is dead, and, realistically, nobody comes back? That grief has to be accepted? In the metaphor of the River Lethe, are the characters washed in the waters of forgetfulness not only to make death tolerable for the dead, but to make life tolerable for the survivors? Or is this a Freudian reading of the story? Is Eurydice's refusal to move from daughter to wife her rejection of womanhood? Is that why she plays hopscotch for about 10 minutes? Or is this about how difficult it is to be married to a great artist, that "he is always going away from you"?

Or ... or . . . or . . .. Eurydice is an interesting play, although the intriguing ideas it suggests seem insufficiently developed and the texture too thin.

There's about 20 minutes of dialogue in this 90-minute production. That said, you might find the incantatory, slow and highly stylized manner of speaking - especially by Eurydice (Merritt Janson) and Orpheus (Benjamin Huber), clearly Blanka Zizka's directorial choice - fascinating or irritating. I thought over and over how much more moving the play would be if these characters sounded more like human beings and less like Alice in Wonderland.

Triney Sandoval is a crowd-pleaser as the Lord of the Underworld in a bright red suit, riding a tricycle and sounding a lot like the Cowardly Lion, but the role seems to require a bit more sinister gravitas. As Eurydice's dead father, Stephen Novelli has the most poignant role, and the three talking stones (Erin Reilly, Gene D'Alessandro and Cathy Simpson) provide both comic relief and a running commentary on what it is to be dead ("Being sad is not allowed: act like a stone").

The rest of the production's stage time is taken up with often-stunning visual images; for many silent minutes we watch Eurydice's father build a house of string for her, for example.

Composer Toby Twining and his outstanding vocal ensemble more than meet the musical challenge of a play about Orpheus. Twining's haunting music is performed high above the stage, as if in some otherworldly region, and its eerie sound is both contemporary and archaic.

Ruhl is obviously interested in death; her previous play at the Wilma was the gorgeous, funny production of The Clean House, a play about dying, and her newest, which opened in March in New York, is Dead Man's Cell Phone. Eurydice is clearly a stop along a very interesting way as this young (34), successful (won a MacArthur grant) playwright continues her talented journey.

Eurydice

Through June 1 at the Wilma Theater, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets $37 to $52. Information: 215-546-7824 or www.wilmatheater.org.