![]() When, as part of the curtain call, she sings the score’s loveliest number - “I Raise My Cup” - you at last wish the show would slow down so you could live in the glowy moment forever.Īlong the way there, Ms. Gray, never better, makes something quite brilliant out of Persephone: a free spirit, a loose cannon, a first lady co-opted by wealth yet emotionally subversive. (One of his songs, written more than a decade ago, is called “Why We Build the Wall.”)Īnd Ms. Page, rocking a Leon Redbone look and rumble, makes an electrifyingly maleficent Hades, even without playing up the Trumpian parallels that have overtaken the material. Luckily, the second story is direct and vivid throughout. This can get tiring even though so much of what happens happens beautifully, I began to feel it would be better shorter. Mitchell develops her larger themes mostly through metaphor. A feeling is as likely to be described as enacted, and Ms. “Hadestown,” even with the heat turned up, is still a somewhat abstract experience, mediated by several layers of narration from Hermes, the Fates and many of the songs. In truth, it can only accommodate so much. This is emblematic of the production’s choice to deliver the story to the audience in as close to the Broadway manner as the material can accommodate. Though still high-concept, Rachel Hauck’s single set depicts a recognizable idea of place: a basement jazz joint that miraculously turns into the furnace room of Hades’ factory. Yet the most obvious transformation is visual: “Hadestown” is now performed on a proscenium stage instead of in a miniature Greek amphitheater. And a new chorus of five hunky workers expands not only the sound but also the theme of security attained at the expense of freedom. The Fates, a girl-group trio, now feel more integral to the action, not just witty commenters on it. ![]() Underneath the hood, a million small adjustments have been made, especially to the lyrics, which have shed some of their pop haze in favor of specificity. But if there’s one thing this “Hadestown” is pushing, it’s the idea that what really matters is happening where you can’t see it. ![]() Other than some reordering, that’s mostly just as it was three years ago - at least on the surface. All of it sounds great in swinging arrangements for a terrific seven-piece onstage band. Mitchell’s score combines folk, pop and Dixieland with rhythmic work shanties and, for the lovers, ethereal arias. To make these points, “Hadestown” moves the tale to an earth that resembles sassy New Orleans, with hell a demonic foundry. There, it was garbled and precious, too cool for its own good, let alone Broadway. What’s onstage at the Kerr is almost unrecognizably different from the version I saw at New York Theater Workshop in 2016. That’s because “Hadestown” - written by Anaïs Mitchell, developed and directed by Rachel Chavkin - has itself been radically transformed. And the Fates (at least in this version) are always darting about, minding everyone’s business.īut watching “Hadestown” unfold so gorgeously at the Walter Kerr Theater, I found myself thinking of other Greek characters: those lucky few saved from heartbreak by radical metamorphoses. ![]() (He’s her husband.) Hermes, of course, has wings on his feet. Persephone spends six months aboveground living the good life of summer and song before returning for six months below with Hades. All your favorite Greeks are heading somewhere in “ Hadestown,” the sumptuous, hypnotic and somewhat hyperactive musical that opened on Wednesday night after its own twisty 13-year road to Broadway.Įurydice descends to the underworld Orpheus follows to retrieve her.
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