Hadestown (June 14 2024)

The following is a review of the June 14 2024 performance of Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York.

When adapting a story as towering in the mythological canon as Orpheus and Eurydice, it's typical to quickly reframe conception of novelty. As one might feel attending a production of Hamlet having already seen five others- you aren’t going with the intention of being surprised by the events of the plot. One goes to experience the how of the telling, rather than what is told.

Hadestown meets this challenge head-on, declaring early that “It’s a sad song”, “It’s an old song”, but “We’re going to sing it anyway”. At first glance, this may seem like hint to the audience to expect nothing new if they already know the story. The truth is more complicated.

The fact of the matter is that Hadestown is an intricate retelling of a classical myth that weaves in novelty in surprising and satisfying ways. Even though much remains the same, its new ideas and themes sufficiently justify describing it as its own story– it is Hadestown, not Orpheus and Eurydice. It’s a tale brimming with life and death, love and despair, clemency and fear. It constantly asks the audience to think and reflect on the choices the characters make, posing the uncomfortable questions we have all faced before, and will again.

While it would be fair to describe every facet of the production as dazzling, from the design to the performances, there were individual elements that managed to even outshine their radiant surroundings. It’s hard to understate how challenging it is to play Orpheus, a character whose music is so transcendent that everything, from inanimate objects to the gods themselves, cannot help but fall in love, but Jordan Fisher made it look easy. Max Kumangai, a swing who played Hades, was also a standout performance (though he was perhaps a little young to be singing the words “Take it from an old man”). It also goes without saying that the band, which is on stage throughout the show and are constant participants in the action, were another highlight.

Should I see it?

Had you asked me this question at the end of the first act, my answer would have been that it the show is a great experience for the musical theater faithful– a brilliantly constructed performance that doesn’t stray too far from the conventions that make Broadway Broadway.

But the second half of the show is so spectacular, so thought-provoking, so emotionally supercharged, that I believe it has already crested the summit of musical theater’s Mount Olympus. It has the heart and intellect to win over even the most stubborn theatergoers– a reflection on mortality so beautiful that you do yourself a disservice not to experience it.