Hadestown - Original Broadway Cast (2019)
I saw the travelling version of the Broadway hit last night. It’s as good as people will tell you it is.
My hearing isn’t such that I can pick out all the details of an amplified performance and compare to the recording, but it was fun and rousing and dancable.
Things I loved about Hadestown
The operatic presence of Hades himself (at least the guy who was playing the part when we saw it, my daughter said he carried himself like he had recently played Wotan in the Ring Cycle)
The band are integrated as characters
The twice-removed storytelling (it’s a story about a story) gives us enough distance from the original that we don’t have to try to graft modern psyochology directly onto the ancient story. The whole thing takes place as consciously being a performance.
Subtext that isn’t quite about labor and capital, but brings a modern angle to the human struggle without making it an overt morality play about evil bosses and exploited workers. Everyone–even the boss–is exploited by being locked into their roles, and that’s the point.
