#FUCK I LOVE HADESTOWN

[hercarisntyours]

[jacketpotatoo]

I watched Hadestown live on the West End and I just wanted to ramble because it changed my life.

Melanie La Barrie is an absolutely electric Hermes. she's charismatic and fun and toes the line between a god enjoying the beauty of the present and a god, tired and resigned, that knows how the story ends. she is an interlocutor that invites the audience into this tale whilst being fully There with the characters. a moment that broke me was Road to Hell (Reprise) where she says the 'alright' twice to Orpheus in a way meant to comfort him rather than in a detached manner to the audience. It was like a grandmother calming down her grandson and it was devastating. I love how she stands in the shadows in scenes where she isn't involved and checks her pocketwatch often - it's a reminder of her omniscience and meta-theatrically, how she's an occupant of present stage-time as well as story time. A story time that spans thousands of years, from oral Greek myth, to Ovid, to this present retelling set in Depression Era America.

I love the jazz. the fact that the unbroken song is reflected in music genre and the presence of the band onstage with the rest of the cast. there were just little moments (like at the very beginning, Hermes goes to Eurydice and asks her if she's ready and they smile at each other before the former makes her way frontstage) where the Stage of it all is made clear. it's a story about telling stories and the cast is as important as the dramatis personae in its retelling. like the blurring of character and actor - when Our Lady Of The Underground takes time to give the band their flowers. it's so important in a story focusing on the average person and survival and creation of art. And it's just so genius to juxtapose those on stage that have access to the audience (Hermes and the band) and those that do not (the chorus and mortals). also the juxtaposition of Hades and Persephone (gods whose lives persevere in the changing of seasons and the cycle of death) and Orpheus and Eurydice (whose lives end but stories continue in this loop that inadvertently perpetuates hope by retelling in a different kind of immortality). Don't even get me started on flower symbolism. also also the band gave an encore performance and i love them sm like trombone guy?? mvp.

Some small things about the rest of the cast too: Hades was an absolute standout. he wasn't my favourite listening to the soundtrack a million times but he's a scene stealer and i loved every bit of him. just the way the actor carried himself - his walk, the set of his shoulders - was fucking perfect. tortured villain and sleazy capitalist at once. when he danced with Persephone he ended up doing this silly little jig that she followed along with after giggling a little and like. AAAAA?? And his 'I don't know' to Orpheus was so genuine. When he let Orpheus go his handshake was stretched long and he clutched him just that little bit longer because he knew that they wouldn't make it and. ugh. i'm so emotional. Persephone? transcendent. her voice. her moves! again, tortured and so, so fun. when she started dancing with Hades she couldn't look at him for awhile and her face was this beautiful mesh of emotions that transitions to pure joy. oh she was perfect.

I didn't get Irish Orpheus but Swing Orpheus was wonderful as well. He has the same puppy dog energy as Reeve!Orpheus but he was less dreamy/head-in-the-cloudsy. Wait For Me (alongside fucking gorgeous lighting and staging) and If It's True?? URGH. Actually lifechanging live experience. I'm not the same person I once was. also Eurydice was fantastic. she was British and while the cadence/accent took me a few songs to get used to, she brings a very different hard-tortured energy to Eurydice - it was an interesting and fitting interpretation of the character. this was reflected in her vocal texture as well with a much more desperate and belt-y sound than Noblezada!Eurydice. I love them both though, she was wonderful. ALSO she and Orpheus kept having these sweet little eye-contact interactions onstage when other things were going on and argh i love these goobers. a sad tale and a tragedy :,)

i have so much more to say and this is getting too long but i also wanted to mention that the theatre was full of audible gasps when Orpheus turned around. just. what an incredible, immersive, emotional experience. i'd one thousand recommend seeing it if you have the opportunity.

[sxnyarostova]

hello, hadestown fandom. notice something? every single time orpheus and eurydice are entwined together on stage, she is always in front of him. he is always behind her.

she never doubts whether or not he is there; she trusts him, holds him, loves him. he trusts that she is before him; solid, his love, in front of his eyes.

she never doubts him, but this ingenious stage direction is why he turns when their positions are altered. she has always been in front of him; when she isn’t, he quails.

[arosebyan0thername]

If there are a million Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, I am one of them. If there are only two Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, I am one of them (Eva Noblezada is the other). If there are no Reeve Carney as Orpheus fans in the world, Eva Noblezada and I are dead 😔

[your-stranger-halfblood-things]

Stu would literally rap Hamilton in Billy's ear if he lived long enough to hear the musical. But he's the type of person to sing all the parts, so he's out of breath and gasping for air while annoying the fuck outta Billy, who just wanted to listen to Hadestown or something like that, but now he has to deal with a sweaty Stu who's jumping around and singing and dancing all parts of Hamilton

[flickerintwilights]

on the road to hell

[isthatacalzone]

you had to be there but when I say Dónal Finn's performance of If It's True this afternoon was the most powerful fucking version of that I've ever goddamn heard I need you to believe me

[heavendraven]

do you think they explored each other's bodies

[heartswellz]

orpheus…. eurydice…………. album called all hell……… it’s over guys

[ace-and-ranty]

The thing about me is, I'm a pussy about tragedies (the genre). I don't do well with them. They make me sad. I understand what people say about catharsis in like, theory, in practice they just make me feel bad. So I just avoid those kinds of stories. No biggie.

EXCEPT.

EXCEPT.

Unfortunately for me, people keep making amazing fucking musicals out of tragedies. I WOULD JUST LIKE TO LISTEN TO GOOD MUSIC. WHY IS ALL THE GOOD MUSIC ABOUT DOOMED BITCHES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

[alyona11]

The duality of man is when you love Hadestown so much that you hate Hadestown

[hercarisntyours]

no you don't understand wait for me im coming, wait im coming with you, wait for me im coming too, im coming, im coming wait for me

[eli-is-an-idiot]

the first ten seconds of Chant do something to me i love it so much

[gncrezan]

born to be a wealthy patron of the arts forced to be working class

[cosmosnout]

To that one person in my tags who said that Roger and Rouge remind them of “wedding song” from Hadestown, your brain is literally so big.

[gooooose]

"and suddenly hades was only a man"

and suddenly hades was stripped from his power. and suddenly hades was just one of us. and suddenly hades was only human. how insignificant to be a man. to feel love. but how great love was to have pulled him here. he was only a man. he is an individual no other than the rest. and he had fallen to our state of flesh and blood because of love, a mortal flaw. he reached out to her, breathing out a song of yearning. finding their names in the meaning of love and he was ONLY a man???

"the heart of a man is a simple one." and it is all he had in this very moment. AND ALL THAT IT LOVES IS A WOMAN. she, against the sky. she, in the sun and the wind and the world. persephone. suddenly, was she only a woman? did she, too, fall, with flowers in hand? did they join to sing their song, previously both higher than mortals, but here, just only, just simply, just for a moment, human? they risk their entire existence for the sake of love??? to be human, and only human, to understand their love. But yk it's whatever im totally fine. Just being silly.