On 2nd May a group of students travelled to the Lyric Theatre to watch Hadestown. Here’s Year 12 Ariella’s review of a fantastic evening.

Stars: ★★★★★

Date: 2/5/2024

Start Time: 7:30pm

End: 10:04pm

Full: 2hr 34mins inc. interval

I’m not sure how a show manages to be heartwarmingly sorrowful, but Hadestown somehow manages to be so. 

Hadestown plays masterfully with the failings and flaws of human emotion, exploring features of trust, love, desperation and doubt. It plays nice homage to the myths and aspects of mythology it contains, those of the fates, Hades and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurydice. The joy of using Greek mythology is that it comes prepackaged with a moral, however Mitchell doesn’t leave all the emotional work to the mythology, instead incorporating her own emotional beats into the script and performance by comparing the dynamic of the relationships within the show to those you would typically see in life.

Musicians:

This show should be used as an example of how to respect your musicians and they truly are incredible. It’s always a good show when you can see the musicians and in Hadestown, they blend in not only to the set and colour palette of the show, but also in the costuming of the ensemble cast. The act two opener names and credits each musician by name and you can feel the love and appreciation for them in both the energy of the cast and the audience. Due to the structure of the musical, being sung through, the players rarely get a break and they take it all in their stride, imbuing the music with feeling and emotion.

Music is such a key part of this show and I really like that it seems that the actors have been trained to some extent on how to play or pretend to play instruments whether that be the violin that ones of fates has or the guitar the Orpheus uses for the Epics

Cast:

Understudies: Orpheus (Simon Oskarsson) and Persephone (Lauren Aziana)

This is a very good, highly talented cast with a lovely range of vocal timbres and voice types not only within the main roles, but also within the ensembles. There are not often main roles in theatre that require a bass for anything other than adding layers in loud ensembles and so in the case of Hades, it adds so much character, inviting the audience to build their own opinions of the character due to their preconceived connotations of a Bass that are then confirmed by that later development of Hades. Although not displaying as low or as gravelly a vocal tone as André De Shields on the Broadway cast recording, Zachary James delivers a possibly younger Hades who still expresses a dangerous, possessive figure. A second really enjoyable mix of vocal timbres is also seen in the trio of the fates, where Allie Daniel’s vocal adds a really lovely depth to their harmony, particularly in the a capella section in Nothing Changes.

Set and Design:

This show has a fair amount of visual imagery and hidden inference in the use of props which is always a lovely addition to a show and makes it feel like the production and script has been clearly thought through and then implemented into the set and design. Looking first at the set, I feel like it fits the sort of timeless old aesthetic that is needed for the narrative, mixing the crossing of old figures from mythology and newer ideas of electricity and industrial cities. The set also hides its own secrets, expanding once the musical becomes fully set in Hadestown, splitting almost like tectonic plates revealing the deeper layers of the earth and the deeper layer of hell, supported by a mix of fiery lighting in the ‘cracks’ in the stage, implying a traditional sense of damnation. Similarly, the set closes at the end of the show emphasising how close Orpheus and Eurydice are to the mortal realm before it all goes wrong.

The dirty, industrial environment of Hadestown is displayed really well, not only in the grey scale of the workers’ dungarees, but also in the design of the entrance to Hadestown. The main entrance and exit to Hadestown comes from a moving platform in the centre of the stage that sinks down to imply that characters are coming up from or going down to the underground. The attention to detail can be seen in the almost grungy, dirtied tube that the platform goes down from, which can only be seen when it sinks and you are sitting high up in the theatre. These small details show the love and investment that only only the cast but also the crew have in this production.

Imagery:

Much like in the set, the props also use common associations that an audience may have about them to help support the musical. When Eurydice enters the tavern that Orpheus lives in she lights a candle which is then left in the care of Hermes who acts as the narrator of the story. The candle remains lit until Eurydice lets the fates and Hades tempt her into Hadestown where it is blown out, implying her death as the candle of her life has been extinguished. The candle is then relit at the end of the show because like they told us at the start of the show ‘we’re gonna sing it again and again and again’. It almost connects at another fabled inhabitant of the underworld Sysiphus and his rock, being pushed up and up but never reaching the top, as the story sung again and again but never finished and the couple never reunite.

The issues and tension in the relationship between Hades and Persephone is also hinted at through their actions. At the start of the show both of them sit on a balcony above the rest of the cast playing a game of chess. Chess is often viewed as the game of life, with each player controlling the inhabitants of their own kingdom for their own gain. Hades plays black, taking Persephone’s pieces, living people, and takes them to Hadestown foreshadowing his actions to tempt Eurydice to the underground. Persephone does the same, representing the overground, showing how she is likely to support the release of Orpheus and Eurydice back to the overground as she does in Act 2. The use of chess and their positioning on the balcony helps to cement the idea that these two characters are Gods, playing chess with mortals or poker in the form of ‘when the chips are down’, sitting above them in this show’s version of Mount Olympus.

There are more obvious inferences in the show for example when Persephone goes back to Hadestown, her dress goes from green to black and the flowers in her hair appear to have withered, emphasising the lack of life in the underground.

When the Fates convince Eurydice to go to Hadestown, they remove any colour of her costume, the red inner lining of her coat and she leaves the matching red flower behind.

Characterisation:

The characterisation of most of the characters is really good, the only characterisation I had an issue with is Eurydice. All of the main characters have at least one defining factor that distinguishes them from those around them. Eurydice is used to represent the effects of Hadestown on mortals and her issues are distinctly human but I feel like this has the negative effect of making her rather bland, as her issues are not personal being human needs of food and firewood. I found that because of this, I struggled to sympathise with her and her situation.

Overall, Hadestown is a wonderful watch and a lovely reimagining of Greek myths and the moral issues that arise when faced with immortality and presumed happiness.