#bc i love the lines in the nytw version but i also love the workers singing along in the broadway version | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fairskyabove · 7 years

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What's wrong with the edmonton version of hadestown?

i have a Lot to say so i’m putting a full list of all the changes under the cut but tl;dr: a lot of the most important moments of the show are different and it’s really unclear what the messages of the show even are now, and it’s honestly hard to imagine this version going anywhere near broadway

first a note about the cast. this is of course subject to opinion (and i’m only going on audio, i have no idea if the staging and visual acting would change my opinion at all), but i thought this cast was overall weaker than the nytw cast. tv and reeve didn’t seem to have much chemistry, and both were weaker than nabiyah and damon vocally. kingsley as hermes is very different, his voice doesn’t have the same raspy quality and doesn’t seem to carry the same weight as the narrator, it doesn’t feel like he has the same knowledge of the direction of the story. i like the expanded chorus and hades’s workers, and i like the new fates. amber and patrick seem like they’re pretty much carrying the show, they have amazing chemistry and both are really strong vocally. it’s definitely possible that the cast got more comfortable after this audio, since all i’ve heard is the second preview, but from what i did hear the nytw cast was much stronger.

this list is really long but i’m sure i missed some stuff, so this isn’t like Officially all the changes. also if you don’t read the whole thing i understand bc it’s a lot but the most important part is the part about promises so i would look at that if i were you! also a lot of this discussion came from conversation with maya @davey-jacobsofficial so this is not all my own thoughts! ok here’s a (mostly) comprehensive list of things that were changed:

a shortened and slightly changed version any way the wind blows was moved to after road to hell, which is a little jarring in the flow of the story. i liked any way the wind blows as a sort of prologue, setting the mood before we get into the story. it established the fates as having knowledge and control, and it felt a little dream-like before we got thrown into meeting the characters. it doesn’t make a ton of sense to me to move it after but anyways

road to hell:

some minor lyric changes in the beginning

hermes introduces orpheus and eurydice differently (orpheus is described as singing to himself on the tracks waiting for someone like eurydice)

any way the wind blows:

there’s a man singing with the fates on some lines, i’m not sure who it is or what the point is (might be orpheus, and the intent might be more clear with visuals)

sister’s gone/brother’s gone verse is changed to “wind comes up, ooh do you hear that sound? wind comes up, move to another town”

hermes comes in after this verse and narrates, he explains eurydice’s character a little and there’s a new part where she asks if anyone has a match and then grabs something from someone, probably meant to show us that she can fend for herself and add a litttle context for all i’ve ever known

come home with me:

initial dialogue is different, eurydice seems more aggressive/closed off, orpheus asks her to make a home right there, she says it’s in the middle of nowhere. he claims spring is coming any day, she says it’s late, they go into “a singer, is that what you are?” and then into the song normally

lyrics from there on are almost the same, a few words changed every once in a while

epic i is completely cut, which i don’t understand at all because it’s kind of important for people who don’t know persephone’s story, and makes the epics less of a recurring thing through the whole story, and it ruins the element of orpheus singing about persephone and hades each separately and then finally together in epic iii

livin’ it up on top:

nothing is changed except the last line of orpheus’s toast, which is changed to “to the world we dream about, and the one we live in now,” which kind of changes his whole world view. in the old version, he showed his idealism, believing they could live in a perfect world that they dream of, which fits with his act 1 characterization. in this version he’s just stating that they don’t live in the world they want to, there’s no optimism and it takes away the whole significance of his toast

all i’ve ever known

no changes

way down hadestown

no changes

wind theme

some new dialogue where eurydice sees everyone else leaving and wants to do the same, orpheus doesn’t want to leave his home, and says it’s her home too. short reprise of the “wind comes up” section from any way the wind blows

epic ii

no changes

chant

added line for eurydice before “all the pretty songs you sing ain’t gonna shelter us” where she is getting caught in the storm, singing about the wind surrounding her and how orpheus promised the wind would never change which would be great build up for promises if they hadn’t ruined it

small lyric change in between verses, orpheus sings “a mighty king, a mighty queen” and hermes sings “this year their fighting made/the mightiest storm you’ve ever seen”

after the next verse eurydice sings “love, can you hear me now/answer if you can somehow/orpheus in all my years/never seen a storm like this” and then back into the normal “now i see/all the pretty songs you sing ain’t gonna harbor me…”

right after that hermes sings “eurydice was a hungry young girl/she was no stranger to the wind/but she had not seen nothing/like the mighty storm she got caught in. only took a minute/but the wrath of the gods was in it”

persephone’s verse after this has some lyric changes, mostly talking about how she doesn’t recognize hades anymore as the man she married

hey, little songbird

a couple words changed here and there, hades’s last part is changed to “hey, little songbird, look all around you/see how the vipers and vultures surround you/they’ll take you down/they’ll pick you clean/if you stick around such a desperate scene/see, people get mean/when the chips are down”

when the chips are down

no changes

gone, i’m gone

no changes

wait for me

no changes

why we build the wall

tempo is slightly faster, not sure why

the larger chorus sounds good, it’s more powerful

no lyric changes

our lady of the underground

no changes. thank god for amber gray

way down hadestown ii

no changes

flowers

no changes and honestly i’m surprised they didn’t screw this up too

come home with me ii

they cut “are you always this confident?/when i look at you i am” which was significant wrt doubt comes in and the fact that orpheus loses his confidence because he can’t see eurydice (creds to maya on this one)

papers

no changes

nothing changes

no changes

if it’s true

added a section where hades’s workers repeat orpheus’s message, then orpheus directly addresses the workers like a rebel leader with some added lyrics (i actually like this part, it shows the workers taking an interest and makes hades’s dilemna clearer)

how long

no changes, amber and patrick are trying their best to save the show

chant ii

added section for the workers before hades enters, after hermes’s introduction, wondering what will happen to orpheus, workers sing small parts throughout the song

there are no other changes on the audio i have, but apparently a section was deleted for later performances

epic iii

no changes

lover’s desire

no changes

alright some big structural changes here. right after lover’s desire there’s a new section of dialogue where eurydice tells orpheus to take her home, and says everything he said in act 1 was true (about spring coming etc), pretty much the opposite of what she says at nytw. orpheus says not everything he said was true, he said the wind would never change, etc, he basically takes eurydice’s lines from the first verse of promises and they’re spoken instead of sung. orpheus says he can’t promise the wind won’t change, eurydice says “don’t [promise], just take me home.” orpheus launches into the second half of promises, starting with “i have no ring for your finger.” orpheus sings his verse, eurydice sings hers, then they have another new section of dialogue. they agree to leave, eurydice asks how, orpheus suggests that they walk. eurydice asks about hades, orpheus says hades won’t be able to tell them no, and he isn’t going back alone. they sing their duet verse.

this change is the one i have the biggest issue with. by changing the order of the songs, we lose the moment where hermes tells them they have to trust each other completely and they realize they don’t. we lose a really important part of eurydice’s character, that she was able to speak up and tell orpheus what’s wrong. in this version she has no complaints, he has to tell her that he he isn’t perfect and he couldn’t keep his promises while she acts like he has no flaws. it takes away her agency in the relationship and makes it seem like she got lost and ended up in hadestown and had to wait patiently for orpheus to come save her, when there is So Much More to it than that. we also lose the entire part where they discuss all the ways they’ve let each other down and how they promise to move forward and do better. we lose the resolution of the issues that have been haunting in their relationship since chant, where they both grow up and they both realize that they can’t have the perfect relationship they talked about in wedding song, but they love each other enough that they’re ok with a realistic relationship (maya’s point). we’ve lost the feeling of hopelessness they had at nytw, from the fact that eurydice had literally sold her soul and believed she would be stuck in hell forever. in this version they act like all of the sudden they can just walk out. ultimately what we have in this version is an empty resolution with no build up. all the tension is gone, they never acknowledge anything that’s wrong in their relationship. instead they make empty promises to be together forever despite the fact that they made those promises before, and in this version nothing has changed since then. in the old version, promises added to the heartbreak of doubt comes in, because there’s a moment of clarity between them and they trust each other, they’re ready to move forward just in time to lose each other forever. taking promises away changes the flow of the whole show and makes orpheus and eurydice’s relationship a lot emptier and less mature, taking away from the tragedy of their story. thanks for coming to my TED talk.

word to the wise

no changes

his kiss the riot

no changes

wait for me ii

still starts with hermes giving the good and bad news (same basic meaning, just with slightly different words)

eurydice asks why orpheus can’t look at her, hermes tells her it’s the gods testing them, connecting the “divide and conquer” method to the wall. hermes asks them if they trust each other and themselves. they say they do without any reflection on their relationship or honestly any proof that they even love each other but it’s fine

orpheus asks if it’s a trick, hermes says it’s a test. the song continues like normal from there and we all pretend this part of the show carries the same weight as it did before even though everything’s wrong

doubt comes in

some lyric changes for the fates. now instead of orpheus and the fates singing “where are you, where are you now” it’s just the fates singing “where is she, where is she now” which is cool when you think about it as them planting doubt in orpheus’s head

orpheus sings an added section about how he can see his future with eurydice, one of the fates responds that his story sounds the same as the day eurydice left him for hadestown, there’s some more back and forth along these lines

eurydice’s comfort has some lyric changes but it’s mostly along the same lines

it’s hard to hear what they say when orpheus turns around, but they 100% took out “you’re early/i missed you” which i don’t even see the point of. it took like 5 seconds of the show and fit so well with the situation, it contrasted the relationships between orpheus and eurydice and hades and persephone, and it showed so perfectly their relationship dynamic! going back to maya’s point from earlier, it was so perfect in showing how much orpheus relies on eurydice for his confidence and how he can’t succeed without her! but i guess we’re taking out all the development of their relationship so we can focus on other things

road to hell

this now starts with hermes saying “alright…” and then taking a deep breath and saying it again as if he needs a minute or he’s trying to calm the audience or something? which i feel like is kind of out of character for him. at nytw, he definitely showed emotion when things weren’t going well for orpheus and eurydice, but i felt like his vibe was more “it sucks but this is how the world is” which is one of the big discussions in the show (does the song “nothing changes” ring a bell?) and it makes more sense for a god who’s been around since the beginning of time and seen all the other greek myths and how they end. i don’t think he would be shocked or panicked or whatever kingsley is doing here. especially considering that he obviously knows the end of the story way the whole time, so he always knows where we’re headed (that’s the whole point of “it’s an old song/it’s a tragedy/we’re gonna sing it again/it’s a sad song but we sing it anyway”), so i don’t know what this choice is supposed to tell us.

there are some lyric changes beyond that, mostly saying “that’s how it goes/that’s how it is” which contradicts his opening but it’s mostly along the same lines. he literally sings “we know how it ends, but still we sing it again” so what was he doing??

there’s an added line at the end where eurydice sings between hermes’s lines “orpheus was a poor boy but he had a gift to give,” asking if anyone has a match and grabbing something from someone exactly like in road to hell which maya thought might be like a flashback? which seems like the most likely thing but i don’t really understand why they added it there, it doesn’t seem like it fits, if anything it should be a flashback to orpheus at the beginning. unless that’s when orpheus and eurydice first see each other or something that’s only visual and we can’t hear it

i raise my cup

no changes, but apparently they moved this song to after the curtain call after this audio was recorded, which is honestly just stupid

if you made it through this i’m very impressed. in conclusion the edmonton version is trash and i have no idea what the creative team is thinking.

#this is. much longer than i planned but here you go #also tell me what you think it you've listened to it #hadestown #hadestown edmonton #Anonymous #ask box #this one's mine

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