Sometimes humanity teeters on the brink of collapse, or appears to. Hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters ravage the world's cities. Manmade wars and enormities happen with such regularity that it's almost as if people were hell bent on destroying themselves.

But then comes a spark of hope, or at least the revival of the hope mantra. The cycle begins again, we rebuild, we dream, we leave the past behind.

For you Democrats, the election of Barack Obama probably signifies just such a renaissance of possibility and peace. That is, if the incoming president lives up to those great expectations.

And for you Republicans, well, let's just say the Bush era is over.

Either way, the political changing of the guard is usually a time to reflect upon the past and consider how to make purposeful choices for the future, which is what the recent plays "Eurydice" at the University of Memphis and "The Skin of Our Teeth" at Rhodes College offer viewers in a politically roundabout way.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl was already drafting "Eurydice" when the events of Sept. 11 took place. Just as that disaster will always haunt the Bush years, so it is a spectral force in "Eurydice," a poetic drama that lets us think about what the dead can teach us, and if trying to retrieve them is the smartest way to overcome grief.

The subject of Ruhl's play is the legend of Orpheus, the musician whose bride, Eurydice, dies and goes to the underworld. He defies fate by going to get her back. The god of the dead makes Orpheus a deal. He just has to return to the surface without looking back. In the myth, he can't help himself. As he turns to look, his love recedes forever into the realm of the dead.

Ruhl writes from Eurydice's perspective, however. The heroine is a bookish, imaginative young woman soon to be married to a music-obsessed dude who may not be the most perfect fit for her.

Played by Jade Hobbs, Eurydice is a curious and innocent person. She's easily lured to the high-rise apartment of the "Nasty Man," enticing her with a letter from her dead father. Sean Christian Taylor is exceptionally repulsive as the lurid villain who causes Eurydice to fall to her death (in reference to the World Trade Center?)

An elevator -- raining on the inside -- opens in the underworld and Eurydice steps out, her mind erased by the waters of Forgetfulness. Her father (not a part of the original myth) finds her and, because he's retained some of his memories, helps restore her knowledge of life. When Orpheus (Steven Brockman) comes to reclaim his bride, she is then confronted with a choice between husband and father, life and death.

David Nofsinger's impressive set design serves as a metaphor for loss: a stage full of empty mailboxes, one of them so high in the underworld that the dead can't reach it.

Third-year MFA directing candidate Leslie Barker artfully balances the surreal tone of the play with the human feelings that the characters explore.

If "Eurydice," in a way, expresses how we deal with death in the post-Sept. 11 age of instant communication, then "The Skin of Our Teeth," the classic play by Thornton Wilder (also "Our Town," and "The Matchmaker") at Rhodes, asks us to resiliently gather up our belongings and start again.

The theme was apt when the play premiered in 1942, as the world was in the thick of war, and it's apt today as America's quixotic mission to spread freedom in Arab lands sputters to a conclusion.

Directed by Pamela Poletti, the play opens with the Antrobus family barely surviving a sudden Ice Age. In Act II, they flee an apocalyptic hurricane.

And in Act III, they emerge from hiding, having survived a terrible war.

Wilder and the Rhodes cast of actors elegantly and austerely satirize the human condition. No doubt we are an intelligent race. We invented the wheel and the alphabet and have centuries of philosophy to guide us. Yet we cannot get around the fact that we're also just humans.

Mr. Antrobus (John Hemphill) is a flawed philanderer. Mrs. Antrobus (Mary Buchignani) is a dowdy homemaker who doesn't care for innovation. Girls can't keep their skirts down, boys grow up and become fighters instead of thinkers. And for those who don't want to spend their lives trying to make sense of it all -- like the Antrobus' maid Sabina (Jane Kilgore) -- the only thing a person needs to know about history is how to survive it.

Both of these productions are fitting at the beginning of a new era, or at the end of an old one. Their universal themes have a particular currency in our time.

-- Christopher Blank: 529-2305

"Eurydice"

8 tonight and Saturday at the University of Memphis Department of Theatre & Dance, 3745 Central Ave. Tickets are $10 and $15. Call 678-2576.

"The Skin of Our Teeth"

7:30 tonight and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Rhodes College, McCoy Theatre. Tickets are $10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 for non-Rhodes students, $2 Rhodes students. Call 843-3839.