Unmovie Monday: Hadestown: The Musical

Hadestown: The Musical is the stage recording of a Broadway show currently playing in movie theatres.

Why is a Broadway show playing in movie theatres?

I suspect it’s because the streaming companies are working harder and harder to prevent any actual movies from playing there.

To compensate for the occasional lack of cinema, my local multiplex fills gaps with sports watch parties and stage recordings of productions from the Met Opera in NYC or the National Theatre in London.

I’ve never been to any of these, because I’d rather watch movies, but also because non-movie programming tends to play only once and at odd times.

But Hadestown: The Musical is currently playing four times daily. It’s as easy to go see as The End of Oak Street, Tony or Super Troopers 3.

But you shouldn’t watch anything just because it’s easy.

There once was a time, long, long ago1 when I thought live theatre was vastly superior to film and I saw a lot of plays, almost as many plays as movies.

I’m not sure I realized it was happening, but overtime, very gradually, I started connecting with theatre less and less.

A few weeks ago, someone asked me if I could recommend any plays and I realized I hadn’t seen one in a while, not since March actually, and it wasn’t a fond memory.

It was a musical called Shucked. It had a very vague plot, but mostly Shucked was actors playing hillbilly stereotypes and making sex jokes about corn on the cob. It was as bad as it sounds and that’s putting aside my specific concerns about corn agriculture.

Shucked was not the slapdash result of a local theatre company trying to come up with something on limited time and resources. It was imported from Broadway where it had been a huge hit, nominated for 9 Tony awards in 2023. It has since played successfully all over the world2.

Why has it been so successful? My guess is that a lot of people like live shows with singing and dancing and think the only value story has is giving everyone a chance to rest between numbers. I’m not really into song and dance spectacle. Maybe that’s why I’m not into theatre anymore.

So I really had to be convinced to go watch Hadestown: the Musical

And even when I went, I was pretty sure I’d hate it.

It was recorded at the Lyric Theatre in London. The recording starts with footage of the audience and crowd noises. Mostly people tittering and cheering in delight as the orchestra steps into place and the lights go down

It sounded very similar to the noises I heard around me right before Shucked started..

I sighed heavily and thought, ‘this is going to suck’.

But it didn’t.

Hadestown: the Musical is the best musical I’ve seen in years

It’s based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. One of the few myths where the story doesn’t hinge entirely on a nifty monster and one that has a very unhappy ending.3

It’s been adapted many times, many ways. The first time I saw the Orpheus & Eurydice story was on VHS as part of the super weird anime film, Winds of Change.

Anaïs Mitchell, who wrote the music, lyrics and book for Hadestown, keeps the story in Greek antiquity, but updates the music, costume and sets to some time in the Art Deco period of America, the early 30s would be my guess.

The story is narrated by Hermes, who is usually portrayed as a young man, but here is played by 80-year old André De Shields.

Shield’s ability to sing, dance and exude presence is mind blowing, so much so that when Orpheus is introduced, I didn’t expect to care.

Orpheus is played by Reeve Carny, who I’d only ever heard of because he played Peter Parker in the notorious bomb musical, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark4. I have no idea how he was as Spiderman but he’s quite extraordinary here and Orpheus, particularly an Orpheus who actually sings, is no easy role to play.

If you don’t know the myth, Orpheus supposedly sang so well that he convinced Death to let someone live again5.

A lot of attempts at staging the Orpheus story leave the actual singing out, the argument being that no singer could possibly live up to the expectations the myth sets up6. Fortunately, this is a musical and that sort of copout isn’t an option.

Carney sings and sings so well that Death, played with terrifying low bass vocals by Patrick Page, is forced to reconsider eternity.

Of course, doing that even once sets a very dangerous precedent to someone claiming to be the god of the underworld, so terms and conditions are attached.

It doesn’t seem very likely that Orpheus can meet these and if you know the myth, you know how this turns out.

But you also don’t, because Anaïs Mitchell has a gift for interpreting myths verbatim and finding ways to add completely new twists. I haven’t seen that done so well since HBO’s Rome.

I could go on, but I should leave some surprises for you. So, in conclusion:

Eva Noblezada is really good as Eurydice and Amber Gray nearly steals the show as Persephone, Death’s wife.

Brett Sullivan directed the Stage Recording. He rightfully shares credit with Rachel Chavkin who blocked and choreographed this show so well you’ll believe it takes place in the underworld even though it’s happening on a stage the size of the average pub bar.

If we are truly careening towards a dystopia where movies only play on phones, Hadestown: The Musical offers hope for movie theatres continuing anyway.

That is good news.

That is news so good I’m not even a little sad to learn there are plans to make Shucked into a movie.