Monday, May 2, 2022

Hadestown (Ahmanson 2022)

The genesis of this particular experience has to date back to 2018, when replaced our Sienna with a new one. Which, being new-fangled, had Sirius XM on a trial subscription. Since then, my wife, who is a better negotiator than I am, has threatened to cancel at the end of each contract, until they make her a really good offer. 

 

One of the reasons my wife likes XM is that she is a huge musical fan. And XM has Broadway channel that plays nothing but musicals and songs from them, both classic and the latest. And thus it was that when Hadestown came out on Broadway in 2019, the songs were all over the satellite channel. My kids got to hear the songs, and like them, and then went and watched the Tiny Desk Concert on NPR, and before I knew it, I was hearing all about it from the kids. 

 

Covid shut down live theater for a couple years, which meant that Hadestown barely had a chance to open before it closed, but apparently the songs built up quite a following, and both the Broadway and the touring version have sold well. 

 

Earlier this year, I saw that the touring version would be in Los Angeles for a few months, and this just happened to coincide with my eldest’s birthday. I asked if he wanted to go see it as a birthday present, and he was all in. (As were the three youngest kids.) Since my wife is finally getting her trip to New York with a friend (another Covid postponement) to go see Hugh Jackman in The Music Man, she will be seeing Hadestown there. So, it was me and four kids heading down for food in Thai Town, and a show at the Ahmanson. 

 View from our seats. Good sightlines for my smaller kid.

Hadestown has a weird history, to say the least. Singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell wrote the original version for a small-town community theater premier in 2006, but it never went anywhere. So, she took the music and made it into a concept album in 2010, with various contributors. A few years later, director Rachel Chavkin took a look at it, and decided it just needed a bit of reworking, a few more songs, and a bit of dialogue - and her faith in the project paid off when the play became a Broadway hit. 

 

The musical takes two ancient Greek myths, and combines them into an interconnected storyline, adds in a subplot about what makes the underworld an actual hell, and frames the story with a narration by Hermes, who invites the audience at the end to contemplate why this story is still being told today, and what it might mean to a modern audience. 

 

The first story is that of Persephone. In the myth, she is abducted by Hades, who has fallen in love with her. This breaks the heart of her mother, Demeter, the goddess of harvest and agriculture, who then refuses to let flowers bloom, and endless winter and famine ensues. A compromise is eventually reached whereby Persephone is permitted to return to the human world for half the year, which is how we get the seasons. 

 

The second takes place later, when Orpheus, the greatest musician of all time - hey, he learned from Apollo himself, right? - falls in love with a nymph, Eurydice. Alas, she is bitten by a snake and dies, descending to the underworld. Orpheus is brokenhearted, but decides to go down to the underworld himself and bring her back with him. Aided by his golden voice, he charms his way in, and even gets Persephone on his side. Hades gives him a chance: he and Eurydice can leave, but he has to go first, and never look back to see if she is following. If he fails, she has to stay with Hades. Being mortal, of course he fails, and the lovers are separated. 

 

So, take these two stories, set it in the Great Depression, create a score built around gospel, blues, and Dixieland, and you have this musical. Oh, and put the band on stage - which I always love to see. 

 

There are some interesting twists that Mitchell gives the story. First, she writes the Hades-Persephone match as one of love, not kidnapping and rape. However, the marriage is on the rocks when the story opens. Hades is jealous, and keeps coming to fetch Persephone back before her time is up, leading to harsh winters and failed crops - essentially the Great Depression as explained by quarreling deities. Persephone is unhappy with this, because she is torn between the two worlds. Also, Hades has stopped wooing her, and instead does what too many aging men do: try to hold her with money. Okay, with things, because money isn’t the currency in hell anyway. But you get the idea. Hades literally says this to Orpheus, telling him as “advice from the old guy” that you can’t keep a woman with songs, you have to buy her love. Meanwhile, Persephone is looking daggers at him. One of the things that happens when Orpheus shows up is that he helps them reconcile. 

 

Another change that Mitchell makes is that Eurydice has some agency in her story. Rather than having bad luck with a snake, she gets caught in a storm, and in her hunger and cold, makes a deal with Hades, who wants another lover to make his wife jealous. The problem with making a deal with the devil, of course, is that you can’t just back out later when you have regrets. And Eurydice does have regrets, particularly once she realizes that in hell you lose your memories, your name, and your identity. And working to build a wall for Hades, to protect all the wealth he has accumulated sounds like…well…Hell. 

 

Other than that, the story pretty much follows the classical model, tragic ending included. 

 

There are so many great moments in this musical, I know I will forget some. It was profoundly moved by it, particularly the music, which is just wonderful, and the unusual and devastating way the play ends. It is both a faithful and an imaginative reinterpretation of a timeless myth. 

 

Let me start with the music. I mentioned the genres already, but the scoring was fascinating. The on-stage band consists of drums (just offstage in the version we saw, probably due to space), upright bass, cello, violin, trombone, piano, and guitar. Just enough for a flexible sound and a beautifully transparent texture. The music always seems understated, and just a bit raw. A full orchestra would have felt big and lush and a bit too nice for the story. Instead, the feel went from a jazz band playing on the street corner to a gospel group thrown together from whatever players were in the church that day, to an orchestra as threadbare as Eurydice’s worn garments. And, of course, down to a single guitar and voice. In addition to this orchestra, there were also instruments played by the cast. Orpheus, of course, had to play his guitar and sing. But also, the three fates had their moments, one with a violin, one with an accordion, and one with a tambourine or other percussion. And yes, they actually played and sang - no faking here. (Their parts were, to be fair, easier than the orchestral ones, but still, props for the extra talent.) 

 

The songs are quite memorable, even without the context. The gospel romp, “Way Down Hadestown” already sounds like a classic. “Why We Build the Wall” hearkens back to the Slave Song tradition, and reimagines enslavement in a modern context. “Doubt Comes In” is as chilling as it sounds, and explains Orpheus’ failing better than the original story. Orpheus’ “Epic” is the song he writes to bring the spring back, and is a loving retelling of the Persephone myth. And the haunting paean to thwarted love, “Wait for Me” will tear your heart out by the time it comes back near the end. 

 

Hadestown is also closer to the operatic tradition than the usual musical in that there is almost no spoken dialogue. Just a few lines here and there. Most of the story moves forward through song, and often in the form of what feels very much like recitative. And it flows so organically throughout. 

 

Some other moments come to mind. There is the hilarious scene where the jaded Eurydice is courted by the impossibly naive Orpheus. Hermes (who raises Orpheus in this telling), advises him to “go slow,” so of course he tells her she will marry him by the time he has two sentences out. Eurydice: “Is he always like this?” Hermes: [sighs] “Yes.”

 

During Eurydice’s temptation, the Fates, in their song, “When the Chips are Down,” point out just how much hunger and fear will dehumanize anyone. We do things we never thought we were capable of doing. We make decisions that we would never make otherwise. The Fates, naturally, sing as a trio, with wonderful harmonies, and a kind of impersonal menace. They hate no one, but bring suffering to all. 

 

I mentioned “Why We Build the Wall” earlier. This song ends the first act (see below about that), and is quite an event in its own right. Apparently Mitchell wrote this song before really having a story to fit it in, which is why it feels a bit of an outlier. That said, I think it really works, as an explanation for Hades’ obsession. He feels he has to buy Persephone’s love, and riches means anxiety about keeping it. This song was written before Trump, believe it or not. So one might say it was prophetic. What is sad to me is that most white Evangelicals I know think exactly like Hades. We build the wall to keep the poor people out, and call it “freedom.” Take a listen.

 

And that leads me to what I think is a peculiar artistic choice. In my opinion (and I heard others there express it too), the place to end the first act should have been right after “Wait for Me.” It is the classic show-stopping number, with brilliant choreography and staging, and just felt like the end. I think the audience felt it too. And then, whoops, we have one more song. Furthermore, “Why We Build the Wall” would have been perfect to open the second act, getting the audience back into things before launching into Persephone’s angst. Which wasn’t a bad way to open the second act, but I think “Wall” would have been even better. 

 

But back to “Wait for Me.” This song combines both Orpheus’ longing for the lost Eurydice and a dramatic portrayal of his trip down to the underworld. The staging was brilliant, and in my opinion, the high point of the story. At the climax, he sings the gates open, so to speak: the set cracks apart into three pieces to allow him in. Great drama. But before that, there is this sequence where denizens of the underworld appear with these steampunk lamp things that become part of a brilliant storytelling with light and shadow. As the song reaches its emotional climax, these are hung from the ceiling and used as giant pendulums that form a dance of their own. It is hard to explain, but you can see some of it from the Tony performance here. It doesn’t have everything, though, just the ceiling part, and most of the lighting is kept up to show the singers, which is very different from the complex visual disorientation created in the full show. Such a great song. Also, absolutely shameless emotional manipulation, the way music can do it. Which, I mean, I play the violin, so this is what I do. Bend the melodies around those harmonies that rip the heart to shreds. That motion from Em to C, then G to D, that’s just unfair, then that passing 2nd, the vocal harmonies in 6ths. The audience didn’t stand a chance. But that is the point. Orpheus is the best ever, and it comes naturally to him. Which is how even Hades ends up singing this song, and giving the lovers a chance. 

 

But ultimately, there is no escape. Death comes for us all. 

 

And that leads me to the ending. Beset by the fates, by darkness, and more than anything, “the dog you really gotta dread, the one that howls inside your head, it’s him whose howling drives men mad, and the mind to its undoing,” as Hermes cautions Orpheus, he is so, so, so close. As he stands outside in the sunlight, he turns to see, and she is forever severed from him. The gates of hell close between them.

 

There is the stricken look, and the desolate way they say the other's name, and then she is gone, the lights fade except for a naked spot-on Hermes, who softly says, “and that is the way it ends.” And silence. 

 

Damn.

 

That moment. And the power of the story. Because Orpheus and Eurydice isn’t a fable with a moral. It isn’t a cautionary tale. 

 

Orpheus and Eurydice is about all of us. About our fate. About the fact that we are mortal. That nobody cheats Death. That, one way or another, death separates us from those we love, and ultimately, all that is left of us is a story, if we are lucky. 

 

After that pause, Hermes speaks again. “It’s a sad story.” He asks all of us why we still tell it. Why we keep on telling it, why we can’t not tell it. And he offers one option. Because even though Orpheus failed, he dared to dream of a better world. To dream of positive change. In the musical, the attempted escape has inspired Hades’ slaves to imagine better than just building that damn wall. And Orpheus has offered transcendence in the attempt to do better. Our lives are brief. What beauty can we make while we have them? 

 

It is an odd ending for a musical. Not an upbeat song, not a full-throated declamation by the chorus. Just a quiet thought, a sad story, and the rest is silence. 

 

It reminded me of a few other profound endings. First of course, is what I believe was a deliberate nod to Hamlet and “the rest is silence.” But also, of devastation of Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, where the pain and agony can’t even rise to be heard, but subsides into a quiet resignation. When I last played this, the audience sat shocked for a while at the end, not even daring to clap. It felt like trauma. And so did this ending. 

 

And that is how it should be. That IS the story. And why we keep telling it.

 

The Orpheus myth predates Aristotle by some centuries, far enough back that he may have been a real person about whom legends grew up. (Take that, Beatles!) As with all myths and legends, it has morphed and changed throughout time. Every good story needs to be told and retold, and reinterpreted for each new era. Stories are living, not dead paper in a museum. (This is something that fundamentalists of all stripes do not and never have understood. Faith that does not adapt dies.) In our own era, the idea of “the gods have it in for us” or “respect the gods” isn’t particularly meaningful. I mean, the last person who literally believed in Hermes likely died many centuries ago. But the story still resonates because it has layers of meaning, and a myriad of potential meanings and interpretations. I think Mitchell has done a great job of refreshing an old tale, and finding inspiration that our own hearts can still resonate with in our time. 

 

I do want to mention the cast, which is not the same as the Broadway version. First, Levi Kreis is Hermes, which is a huge change. In the Broadway version, the iconic Hermes was created by Andre De Shields. (You can see him in the Tiny Desk concert linked above.) And nobody, nobody is Andre De Shields. So Kreis had an impossible job to start with. For the most part, he did well. His dancing was superb, he brought kind of a lounge lizard vibe to the role, and his singing was fine. The problem was, mostly, that he wasn’t Andre De Shields. (And he’s younger too.) And also that the role called for a lot of soul-style singing. And poor Kreis sounded a bit like a white guy singing soul. I really hate to point that out, but it is true, despite the fact that, as I said, Kreis was fine. Good voice, good feeling, didn’t try to be what he was not. He didn’t do the vocal equivalent of blackface (blackvoice?), which I appreciated. He was just…a bit white. 

Foreground: Eurydice (Morgan Siobhan Green), Hermes (Levi Kreis), Orpheus (Nicholas Barasch)
Background: Hades (Kevyn Morrow), Persephone (Kimberly Marable)
 

That said, I will say that he absolutely KILLED the ending. Perfect timing of the silence. The slight break in the voice on the first “It’s a sad story.” I cannot imagine a better performance of that moment. And really, he was good. He just wasn’t Andre De Shields. 

 

As Orpheus, I thought that Nicholas Barasch was even better than the original. The part calls for a lot of singing in a very high register - soprano level at times, so exposed falsetto. And I mean exposed. If he was lucky, he got to strum the guitar, but plenty was just the voice, or very minimal accompaniment. And damn, he was amazing. So smooth and naive and pure. Plus, that red hair and baby face. Perfect casting. (And his guitar work was solid too.) 

 Hades, Orpheus, Persephone
 

Special mention to Morgan Siobhan Green (Eurydice) and Kimberly Marable (Persephone.) Both were wonderful in acting, dancing, and singing. Marable was an understudy on Broadway, but definitely deserved the role. Green had a purity and power in her voice that suited the role. Honestly, the whole cast was great, and the vocals were impeccable. Even the most minor roles were on stage most of the time, and the play is very physically demanding, with so much emotion portrayed by movement. Plus, the music was complex vocally, and required every person to carry their own part at times. And also a lot of switching of dynamics and feeling. And the voicing is different every time, harmonies subtly different, counterpoint continuously morphing. I mean, just listen to this several times, and pick out all the different things going on, the suspensions, dissonances, and shifts in emotion. As I said, the music for this is phenomenal. And the ensemble was so perfect - the musicianship was so thrilling. And you know I care about that. 

 Eurydice and Orpheus, with the Fates (Shea Renne, Bex Odorisio, Belen Moyano)

 

This was definitely a highlight of my year, an outstanding production, and a moving and deep story. Worth every penny to go see. 

 

***

 

I didn’t know where to put this in the main post, so I decided to go with a footnote. There are a number of stories in the Greco-Roman tradition about heroes visiting the underworld. Odysseus, Aeneas, and Theseus come to mind, and I am probably forgetting several more. Later, Dante would make an entire career out of the idea. The idea of an underworld located below the earth really is a Greek idea, and it influenced the shift in Jewish thought away from “sheol” - the grave - to an afterlife of sorts. It wasn’t until later that this because a place of eternal punishment. Hades presides over the “shades” of men who were, but he doesn’t torture them. If anything, they receive balm for their sorrows from the river Lethe - forgetfulness. But repurposing this Greek idea as a threat against people who didn’t obey the church definitely appealed once Christianity became a political movement and an empire. 

 

I haven’t believed in a literal hell since I was a child - I read C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce as a teen, and never looked back. Not helping was the fact that I read the entire Bible and realized that a lot of what I was taught it said…it didn’t say. It was the layers of doctrinal superstructure that said it, not the text. 

 

But what I really wanted to say about this is that it is impossible to miss that the teachings and stories about Hell are inseparable from the Greco-Roman mythology that they arose in. The things the Bible does say that were built into a doctrine of hell do in fact reference the mythology. Just like Saint Paul references Aristotle’s Politics in his domestic codes. Culture is inseparable from the writings, which should surprise absolutely nobody. 

 

Just as the doctrine of hell arose later, so did another story that is in the Creeds, but not actually in the Bible: the “harrowing of hell.” This is the story that after his death, Jesus Christ descended to the underworld and brought back the captive souls. Sound familiar? It should. It is, in its own way, a remix, a reinterpretation of the old stories. Christ did what Orpheus failed to do. 

 

In Hadestown, the connection is even more obvious. Orpheus wants to rescue Eurydice, but their attempt to escape inspires all of Hades’ captives. It is so very “harrowing of hell” that any devout Christian with knowledge of the Creeds would recognize it instantly. 

 

So, see, once again, a myth is remixed. And reimagined. And given layers of meaning and connection to other things. That’s how myths work, and why they retain their power. 

 

Quibbling over whether a particular story is factual, if it “actually happened,” or worse, arguing about how to most literally (and unimaginatively) make a story into a rigid rule is the worst possible way to experience a story. Stories are alive, if you let them be alive, and keep them alive by retelling, reinterpreting, readapting, and reimagining them in our own time and culture. 



 

 

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