Hadestown: The Review No One Wanted

Before I jump into a review of Hadestown that a) is, like, a decade too late and b) no one asked for or wanted, I need to clarify something.  Have you heard No Myth by Michael Penn (Sean Penn’s brother)?  It references some tragic, romantic figures like Romeo and Heathcliff.  I heard an interview with him where he said he did that deliberately because, while figures of romance, they aren’t anything close to examples of a healthy relationship.  One is teenage infatuation and the other is damn near abusive.  This very much captures my thoughts about most grand, romantic stories.  

Although I love musicals, I generally don’t like stories about romance in musicals … or literature … or movies … for this reason.  Usually, such romances will bother me to the point of ruining a story in any medium.  Examples:

• Romeo and Juliet, as previously mentioned, elevates teenage infatuation to the point that it seems like it’s supposed to be a good thing.  But it’s only the backdrop of familial (or race, in the case of West Side Story) hatred that redeems a trite love story.  
• Rent … ugh.  I genuinely despise everything about this musical.   If you have 15 or so minutes, I HIGHLY recommend this review by David Rakoff .  
• Phantom of the Opera was my gateway drug into musicals.  But both love stories make me cringe.  One is a masked incel and the other is just the worst kind of finance bro.  
• Wuthering Heights … please.  
• Chicago has really great music which is helpful because almost everyone in this story is in love with themselves, just the absolute worst people, and the only two decent ones disappear by being executed and written into irrelevancy.  
• Moulin Rouge has one of the most annoying male romantic protagonists ever in the history of musicals.  
• Pretty much everything Disney until recent years.  

You get it.  And I think others have as well.  For example, Disney and Pixar have taken to writing stories where those love tropes of the past are outright mocked or replaced by other relationships.  Shrek turns the whole genre on its head.  Elsa finds out that her true love is her sister.  Etc.  But there are some musicals of the classic type which I love and which have love stories.  Of those, two are my absolute favorites.  

• Man of La Mancha kind of proves me to be a hypocrite because the Quixote is quite literally mad and his love is madness.  Yet his love is of the kind of self-sacrifice that none of the male leads in the stories listed above could recognize.  It leads to the redemption of Aldonza and her transformation into the Dulcinea that Quixote, in his madness, sees her to be.  He has long been the man I wish I was.  Also, not for nothing, it’s shown as madness, not as something to be emulated.  
• Les Miserables is quite interesting because it has multiple love stories which intersect at various points.  One, that of Eponine for Marius, is of the obsessive quality of Romeo and Juliet and ends in the kind of tragedy one would expect.  The other, that of Cosette and Marius, is of the kind of soft focus, doily-fringed, Disney quality that makes it utterly trite.  What makes it interesting is the other two relationships which, as it turns out, are both parental in nature.  The love of both Fantine and Jean Val Jean for Cosette seems to me to be set in contrast to that of Eponine for Marius and Cosette and Marius for one another.  In the light of those two loves, everything else becomes common, at best.  The love of Enjolras for the people of France, the love of Javert for the law, etc.  None of it compares to the love of Fantine and Val Jean for Cosette.  

This is all-important to my review because I did not expect for my love of Hadestown to come close to my love of either Les Miserables or Man of La Mancha.  I ESPECIALLY didn’t think that it could make me care for another romance that I find to be as trite as those I listed before, that of Orpheus and Eurydice.  

But it did.  Holy shit, it did.  

I don’t know that a story which has its roots in myths so old that they predate the Trojan War can be said to need a spoiler warning, but … spoilers ahead.  

OK, so the story weaves together two love stories, that of Hades and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurydice.  These myths, however, are set in Depression era America both musically and in environment/costumes/etc.  Going in, all I knew of this musical was this and the song “Why Do We Build the Wall” (which was written LONG before T****’s presidency).  

I kind of expected the writer, Anais Mitchell, to play around with the names … like … base them on the etymologies.  Something like:

• Orpheus would be “Orphan”
• Eurydice would be “Justice” or something like that
• Hades would be “Hidden King” or maybe “King of Haints” 
• Hermes would be … I dunno … you get the idea.  

But no, she kept the Greek names and the Greek stories, but the “real-world” setting made it seem both realer and hazier and just more gripping.  I suppose it could be called Magical Realism.  Regardless, the story is rather simple and hews close to the original.  

• Hermes is the narrator.  Less of a trickster and more of a storyteller.  
• Orpheus is the son of a Muse who is trying to write a song to bring back Spring.
• Eurydice is a hard-on-her-luck and hardened girl with whom Orpheus falls in love and who falls in love with him in return.
• Hades is, quite literally and absolutely brilliantly, a Plutocrat.  I don’t know if Mitchell intended that bit of wondrous wordplay (“plutocrat” isn’t used in the story), but it’s fantastic.  
• Persephone is his wife.  In this version of the story, they actually fell in love and it’s not nearly as … problematic as the actual myth.  
• The Fates are more of a Greek Chorus than the actual Fates and sing the “intrusive thoughts” in everyone’s minds with occasional commentary on the story.

I want to take a moment to talk about the actors and the set.  Listening to the music from the original cast recording is quite devoid of life.  But, also, I think we really lucked out on our cast.  The man who played Hades was a huge, Black man with a booming, baritone.  Persephone was Ani DiFranco.  Orpheus, in addition to being a great singer, looked every bit the waifish orphan.  

But the best part was Hermes and Eurydice.  The original Hermes is the only one I MIGHT have liked better than our cast.  The original looked like Anansi stepped right out of Ghanan myth and folklore and was amazing.  Our Hermes was Asian and had a more of a con-man kind of take on the role, but somehow also fatherly.  The actress who played Eurydice is his real-life daughter.  That relationship put an extra pump of verisimilitude into the story who made it that much more powerful.  Both were absolutely amazing.  

Anyway, Orpheus and Eurydice fall in love and, to be honest, it played out quite like a lot of the other love stories I’ve mentioned that I didn’t like at all.  Hades and Persephone are having marital troubles and he, in his loneliness and jealousy, is taking her back to Hadestown earlier and earlier which creates problems for a world that depends on Spring and Summer.  

Orpheus continues to work on his song and neglects his newfound love, Eurydice.  She ends up signing a contract with Hades (committing suicide?) because he promises her shelter, employment and food.  At this point, Eurydice sings an absolutely gut-wrenching song.

The first part that grabbed me happened here.  The Fates are usually causing problems or representing the characters thoughts that cause the problems.  But here, they stop and tell the audience not to judge her.  What would we do in the same situation?  

    Go ahead and lay the blame     Talk of virtue     Talk of sin     Wouldn't you have done the same—     — in her shoes?     In her skin?     You can have your principles     When you've got a belly full     But hunger has a way with you     There's no telling what you're gonna do     When the chips are down     Now that the chips are down     Whatcha gonna do when the chips are down?     Now that the chips are down

Orpheus finishes the song and finds that Eurydice is gone. Hermes tells Orpheus that Eurydice has gone to Hadestown and Orpheus decides to follow here there.  So Hermes tells him …

    How to get to Hadestown:

    You have to take the long way down,

    Through the underground, under cover of night,

    Layin' low, stayin' out of sight.

    Ain't no compass, brother, ain't no map,

    Just a telephone wire and a railroad track,

    Keep on walkin' and don't look back,

    'Til you get to the bottomland.

The journey to Hadestown is absolutely stellar.  Up ‘till now, the best journey to Hell I’d heard is from Le Damnation de Faust by Berlioz.  For this one, the entire theater became completely dark except for occasional lights on the heads of the chorus (who were also amazing) or some lamps they held.  It was wonderfully eerie and creepily delightful.   I need to mention the set at this point as it is integral to the story.  The center of the stage is separated into concentric circles which each move independently.  The innermost circle can raise or lower.  Thus, you can have the inner, middle and outer circles spinning in opposite directions so that the cast can move while staying in the same place.  This led to some absolutely stunning choreography as it allowed for the illusion of movement in a very small space and different groups could weave around one another as their voices and the various parts of the songs wove together.

As Orpheus is traveling, Hades and his workers sing “Why Do We Build the Wall.”  I’d like to reiterate that it was written long before the 2016 election.  

Orpheus finally makes it to Hadestown where he finds Eurydice who is forgetting who she is.  Orpheus tries to remind Eurydice, but Hades hears and sic's his workers on him.  But, in a brilliant bit of orchestration, it turns out that the workers have heard him.  Their song changes from, “Gotta keep your head low,” to bits of Orpheus’ song interspersed within it to, eventually, a revolutionary type song.  

Orpheus, hearing them, sings:

    If it's true what they say

    I'll be on my way

    But who are they to say what the truth is anyway?

    'Cause the ones who tell the lies

    Are the solemnest to swear

    And the ones who load the dice

    Always say the toss is fair

    And the ones who deal the cards

    Are the ones who take the tricks

    With their hands over their hearts

    While we play the game they fix

    And the ones who speak the words

    Always say it is the last

    And no answer will be heard

    To the question no one asks

    So I'm askin' if it's true

    I'm askin' me and you

    I believe our answer matters more than anything they say

Having only heard “Why Do We Build the Wall” before seeing the musical, this is what I came expecting to see.  And, to be fair, it was a stirring moment which I thought would be the climax.  Orpheus rouses the dead of hell to stand up to the gods.  And if you think about the experience of factory workers before, during and after the Depression, it would have basically been that of men to gods, so powerful and removed that they cared not for those who worked for them.  I kind of thought that, at this point, the love story would give way to this workers anthem and that would be it.  

But I was wrong.  Hades, knowing that he was in a precarious position, allows Orpheus to sing his song for him.  It turns out that the song Orpheus has written is about the love story of Hades and Persephone.  And it.  Is. AMAZING!!!  And it works!  There is a moment with Hades standing sullenly on the side of the stage. But the sullenness turns to memory and pain and then REAL TEARS were coming from his eyes.  A flower blooms in Hades’ hand.  He fully turns into Barry White and he and Persephone dance around the floor.  

Then, he has a decision to make.  Will he let them go?  And all the other workers, too?  Hades sings a song with this wonderful phrase:

    Have I made myself their lord

    Just to fall upon the sword

    Of some pauper's minor chord?

The Fates counsel him (or speak his thought) that men are weak and, if he gives Orpheus enough rope, he will hang himself.  So Hades sets a condition.  Orpheus must walk alone, with Euridyce behind.  If he looks back, she has to stay in Hadestown forever.   Hermes tells the conditions to Orpheus and cautions him:

    The meanest dog you'll ever meet,

    He ain't the hound dog in the street,

    He bares some teeth and tears some skin,

    But brother, that's the worst of him.

    The dog you really got to dread,

    Is the one that howls inside your head,

    It's him whose howling drives men mad,

    And a mind to its undoing.

    I'll tell you where the real road lies:

    Between your ears, behind your eyes,

    That is the path to Paradise,

    Likewise, the road to ruin.

Hades and Persephone agree to try again next Fall.  Meanwhile, Orpheus sets out as Eurydice sings, “Wait for me, I’m coming!” and the workers sing:

    Show the way!

    Show her the way so we can see

    Show her the way the world could be

    If you can do it, so can she

    If she can do it, so can we

In case you haven’t picked it up, that idea of “showing the way the world can be” is repeated throughout the musical.  

Here is where pure magic happened.  Without realizing it, I had become absolutely and fully invested in everyone.  But I knew the story.  I knew how it ended.  I wasn’t on the edge of my seat.  I was hunched in it, nearly having to peek through fingers covering my face.  Still, though, I hoped.  I hoped for Hades and Persephone to be able to work it out next Fall.  I hoped for the workers to make it out of Hell. Most of all, I hoped for Orpheus and Eurydice.  But, as you may have heard, it’s not the despair that kills you.  

It’s the hope.  

Orpheus is making his way, alone.  He can’t hear Eurydice singing behind him.  But he can hear the Fates singing doubt into his head.  

    Who am I to think she would follow me?  

    Who am I against him?  

    Why would he let me win?  

    Is this a trap that's bein' laid for me?  

    Is this a trick that's bein' played on me?  

    I used to see the way the world could be 

    But now the way it is is all I see 

I cannot express how wrapped up I was in the story.  I was at war with myself.  I knew, I KNEW how it ended but I continued to hope that this time … this time they’d tell it differently.  I desperately (which, ironically, means “without hope”) wanted them to make it.  I mean, isn't the story of Beren and Luthien just Orpheus and Eurydice but done better and with a happy ending??? It's possible! And Euridyce sang:

    You are not alone

    I am right behind you

    And I have been all along

    And the darkest hour

    Of the darkest night

    Comes right before the—

Orpheus looks back.  The floor opens and sucks her back into hell.  It broke me. 

Then, after a moment of silence, that motherfucker, Hermes, comes back out and says/sings this:

    It's an old song

    It's an old tale from way back when

    It's an old song

    And that is how it ends,

    That's how it goes

    Don't ask why, brother, don't ask how

    He could have come so close

    The song was written long ago

    And that is how it goes.

    It's a sad song

    It's a sad tale

    It's a tragedy.

    It's a sad song

    But we sing it anyway.

He almost shouted the line, “We sing it anyway,” loud!  Half broken and half defiant.  Like he was daring us to question why he would do such a stupid thing.  He continued:

    'Cause here's the thing,

    To know how it ends,

    And still begin to sing it again,

    As if it might turn out this time,

    I learned that from a friend of mine.

Maaaaaan … Anais Mitchell … she was wrong for that.  I cried harder.  Then the stage resets and Eurydice comes out again just as she did in the first scene.  And, despite everything, despite knowing that the story was older than Rome, older than Israel, probably first written in Linear A which no one can decipher ... despite having heard the story when I was young myself ... despite having been subjected to this version of it and knowing that there was no change ... despite all of that, I felt hope well up again that maybe … maybe … it would turn out this time.