![]() The singing, especially in the group numbers, is irresistibly rousing.Īlthough the ending of the myth is well known, Mitchell’s inventive musical made me hope against hope that Orpheus would finally be able to safely retrieve his beloved from the land of the dead. Cohen is still hovering, but just not to the same penetrating degree.įor those who haven’t seen “Hadestown” in New York, there shouldn’t be any problem. ![]() Morrow’s Hades is a seductive devil with a commanding voice, but I missed the deep Leonard Cohen resonances that rumbled out of Patrick Page‘s chest. But De Shields, who performed the role as if he were conducting a gospel-inflected rite, set a more profound spiritual tone. Kreis, who evokes a puckish Harry Connick Jr., is vocally electric. The greatest loss is the absence of André De Shields, who won a Tony for his performance as Hermes. The casting, I now see, was unimprovable, and it took me some time to adjust to the new personnel. Green’s Eurydice has moodier riffs that recall the moonlit moments in the Duncan Sheik-Steven Sater score for “Spring Awakening.”Ĭomparisons between Broadway productions and touring shows are invidious, but this incarnation of “Hadestown” helped me understand just how instrumental the original Broadway company was to the show’s success. Marable’s Persephone finds temporary rescue from her woes in honky-tonk. There are moments when his singing could be better modulated, but the character is clearly lost in the somber whirlwind of his own amorous thoughts. The figures in this show are differentiated more by their distinctive musical essences than by their dialogue.īarasch brandishes a piercing falsetto to impress upon us Orpheus’ innocent intensity. Unfurling like a dream, “Hadestown” speaks most eloquently through its sultry jazz score, which not only won a Tony but also received a 2020 Grammy Award for musical theater album. The surreal effect of this layout is enhanced by David Neumann‘s choreography, which keeps the mass of bodies in hypnotic motion. Rachel Hauck’s scenic design manages to convert a jazz club ambience into a Karl Marx-esque hellscape as the musical descends into the underworld. A chorus of workers (Lindsey Hailes, Chibueze Ihuoma, Will Mann, Sydney Parra, Jamari Johnson Williams) in a Hades that’s conceived as an industrial wasteland provides powerful proletariat backup. The Fates (Belén Moyano, Bex Odorisio, Shea Renne), who provide this explanation of Eurydice’s actions, add an additional choral layer to a musical that is as much about interpretation as dramatization. The stage is crowded with vibrant musical performers. Eurydice’s behavior is illuminated in a few lines from “Gone, I’m Gone”: “You can have your principles/When you’ve got a bellyful/But hunger has a way with you.” In “Hadestown,” the personal is never vacuumed-sealed from the political. The book can admittedly get blurry, but the emotional weight of the story comes though in the songwriting. Eurydice gives up her happiness with Orpheus for a less impoverished afterlife in Hades. Persephone is under the thumb of Hades, who oppresses his understandably skittish wife with the same impunity that he uses to exploit his indentured workers. ![]() “Hadestown” directs a gimlet eye on the power imbalance in male-female relationships without sacrificing romantic mystery. ![]() Hades (Kevyn Morrow), the jealous tyrant of the underworld, and Persephone (Kimberly Marable), his wife who gets to return for half of every year to the land of the living, have equal prominence in Mitchell’s retelling. And thus begins the saga of two young lovers whose attempt to hold on to the paradise they’ve briefly found in each other will lead them to the depths of hell. Orpheus (Nicholas Barasch), a struggling songwriter whom Hermes has taken under his wing, is instantly smitten when Eurydice (Morgan Siobhan Green) walks into his life.Ī ragamuffin looking for a meal, Eurydice receives instead a feast of affection that includes a proposition of marriage. ![]() The initial setting resembles a New Orleans speakeasy. ![]()
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