What can I say about this? First of all, I don’t see a lot of musicals recorded for screen. I was excited about this one. And Six, coming later this year.
Plus, it’s good to see them, as it will (hopefully) encourage further recordings, thus bringing the art form to broader audiences.
I had listened to the album, but never seen the show. I know that they celebrated ten years earlier this year, around the same time I was in New York. But I was occupied with other productions, and didn’t make it. There is a tour coming around, so I might see it on stage then.
One part of Hadestown will always be tied up with the time of my life that it premiered. I was in a somewhat unstable state, and the story of Orpheus and Eurydice sort of messed with my head a bit.
However, I worked my way through it, and eventually, when I was hosting a radio program on the arts, I’d play excerpts from the album every now and again.
I don’t know if people are taught Greek mythology as much any more. When I was in school, I read Hamilton’s Mythology and Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.
In college as well, for one of the writing or film classes, we had to read Aristotle’s Poetics and Vogler’s Writer’s Journey.
So, Orpheus loved Eurydice and, according to myth, on their wedding day, as she walked a field in wedded bliss, a viper bit her and she died.
In Anais Mitchell’s adaptation, she imagines the story in one place, near the railway station to Hell. And it’s here that the lovers meet, in cold and desperate times, as Hades has grown jealous, and rarely lets his wife Persephone leave, and not for long.
So, plenty of backstory that the audience has to be given, in the form of song and storytelling. The songs are great. André de Shields as Hermes is phenomenal, and a joy to watch.
Eva Noblezada as well, and Reeve Carney has a great voice, though occasionally he looks surprised to find himself on stage.
I didn’t care for the theater’s sound system, or maybe it was actually the balance on the DCP – digital cinema package. Hard to tell. But some show stopping numbers ended up not being, well, show-stopping.
The auditorium was fairly full, though, and had about as much after movie chatter as The Odyssey, so I take that as a good sign.
I’ll likely add this to my limited collection of filmed performances on my shelves when it gets a physical release.
Michael's Musings 