Through February 19
Can an ancient Greek tale about fate, love, hell and capricious gods still thrill audiences today? After seeing Hadestown, the answer must be a strong Yes. Now at Playhouse Square through February 19, the national tour of the 2019 Tony Award-winning Hadestown offers a fresh look at (as the opening song tells us) “The Road to Hell” and human choices.
Hadestown’s award-winning creators, Anaïs Mitchell (book, music and lyrics) and Rachel Chavkin (director), have translated the timeless Greek legend about obsessive attraction, love and fate into a musical filled with memorable songs, jazzy dances and a double love story.
The musical is about more than going to hell, of course. It is in part about Hades (god of the underworld aka hell) and Persephone (goddess of spring) and their (what we might call today) “complicated” relationship. (Backstory: After Hades kidnapped Persephone and winter fell upon the world, they had arranged a compromise: she leaves each spring, he fetches her each fall.) Matthew Patrick Quinn’s Hades embodies the epitome of a brusk, powerful businessman who always gets his way. As his reluctant mate, Brit West’s Persephone shines as a perfect foil and generates sparks of her own.
But wait, there is more. It’s also a tale about Eurydice (a homeless hippie girl) and Orpheus (a lyric poet with writer’s block) and what happens when the two stumble into the dark world of Hades and Persephone.
The story opens in a New Orleans café with messenger of the gods, Hermes (a wise-cracking Nathan Lee Graham), talking directly to the audience. He’s likeable as he lets us know what’s up as the patrons (egged on by the Fates) carry on with jazzy numbers. When the Fates (a mesmerizing trio made up of Dominique Kemp, Belén Moyano and Nyla Watson) temporarily pause dancing, singing and playing the accordion, they see Eurydice (Hannah Whitley) and point out she is lost and helpless (“Anyway the Wind Blows”).
Next, an equally helpless Orpheus (Chibueze Ihuoma) stumbles into the room. He’s a friend of Mercury, who tells us the young man has a wonderful but unfinished song. Both Whitley and Ihuoma sing up a storm as the show moves along and make us hope that this time Orpheus will succeed not only in finishing his haunting song, but in rescuing Eurydice who has gotten herself into a heap of trouble after making a deal with Hades.
It’s a show where everyone pitches in, including the Workers Chorus, which features Jordan Bollwerk, Lindsey Hailes, Jamal Lee Harris, Courtney Lauster and Eddie Noel Rodríguez.
The set, designed by Rachel Hauck, cleverly shifts (thanks to the vibe emitted from a giant train) from the New Orleans-style upper world to the industrial grind and misery of the underworld. Costumes by Michael Krass (especially Persephone’s red dress and the underworld workers’ drab outfits) help tell the story too. Lighting designed by Bradley King, notably used by the train mentioned above, makes a dramatic, sometimes overwhelming, point about power.
All elements combine well thanks also to Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz (for sound design) and David Neumann (for choreography). A small orchestra directed by conductor (and pianist) Eric Kang impactfully conveyed Mitchell’s varied musical voices. David Lai served as music coordinator.
Side Note: Audience members with local ties may enjoy celebrating great performances by Clevelanders Whitley (Eurydice) and Baldwin Wallace graduate Watson (one of the three Fates).
Bottom Line: Hadestown spins a refreshingly original version of a story about love found and love lost (with eternal rinse and repeat possibilities) and pokes loving fun at human folly, the gods and fate. It’s a don’t-miss show that should brighten even our dreary Cleveland February.
2 Responses to “THEATER REVIEW: “Hadestown” @ Playhouse Square by Laura Kennelly”
EDWARD MYCUE
A swell story needs seeing, hearing, feeling so that an audiences’ pulses start moaning- throbbing down to kicking ankles.
A good story goes before innocence carbonates soul-strings not libido nor a buck$ as reviewer Kennelly seems to suggest.
Kennelly describes several kinds of blue, one red dress swiveling about Persephone as it becomes your every biker’s libido licking political science thriller where some Boris Johnson elbows aside Teresa May for a Bollywood Euridice into a Harrod’s dressing room where there’s a lot of twisting going on and we have to see ringing post haste if readers hope sleeping nights.
EDWARD MYCUE
I just wrote my response (above) to Ms Kennelly’s review of HADESTOWN. Edward Mycue
P.S. Here in San Francisco CA I read all of COOL CLEVELAND’s theater reviews.