#epic iii

[wolfythewitch]

a little reunion animatic

[19th-century-gay-german-teens]

Anyone else wake up at 2pm and immediately think “I should map out the changes to Epic III between Broadway and the West End” ?

No, just me?

Anyway, I listened to both (and in particular read the lyrics to the Broadway version while listening to Dónal Finn singing), and here is the change to the ending.

[brokenmercy]

Where is the man with his hat in his hands, who stands in a garden with Nothing to lose?

[naumaxia-art]

"'Cause here's the thing,

to know how it ends,

and still begin to sing it anyway,

as if it might turn out different this time."

[themaskedmuse]

Thinking about Hadestown right now, and I just want to point out how much unique character and the different levels of emotion Hades’ actor can put into the line “Where’d you get that melody?” From Epic III.

It’s an aspect I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about, but the delivery of the line is just so important to me for Hades as a character. It can hold so much in just the different ways it’s delivered, and how Hades connects to his past, and his love for Persephone.

I heard one take from Patrick Page that was full of anger. An anger from a Hades who is being faced by a boy who is singing his own song back to him. How dare this boy use his own melody of love that he made for Persephone all those years ago against him.

I’ve heard it spoken with a quivering tone, from a Hades who, after so much back and forth and arguing with Persephone throughout the show, has just been slapped in the face with a reminder of how it used to be, and where they started

I’ve heard it spoken with confusion and realization, from a Hades who has almost forgotten the melody, and is being reminded of it. Who has spent so long in Hadestown, desperately trying to hold onto what he fears he will lose, that he’s almost forgotten how it started.

Just… so much of how Hades connects with Persephone, and also to Orpheus, can come from that line, and I love the different choices in delivery that the actors who play Hades can put into that line to make the character their own.

[pininghost]

I'm reaching but I've been thinking about this all morning

[jarondont]

listening to epic iii ("they danced ...") and thinking about how hades and persephone get to reconcile ... get to hold each other in their arms... and how orpheus sings for them, seeing him and his lover in them as they dance ... even though they won't get to do the same

[ipoke-idraw]

So about that new Epic III verse, eh?

[rainoverthewindow]

I saw Hadestown last night.

I may have really liked it.

[noalikestodraw]

I just really love this show and I’m so happy to see it hit five years on Broadway

[musicaltheatregirlsandsongs]

Musical Theatre Song Contest: Round Five

Submitter’s propaganda under the cut

If I Were A Rich Man

I’m learning the melody on the flute! Very fun song!

"I realise of course that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honour either"

No propaganda submitted for Epic III

[rhysdoesstuff]

The way Orpheus sings "see how he labors beneath that load" in Epic Ill in the live recording of Hadestown is everything to me.

[amatalefay]

Full context for each beneath the cut, because the poll options have character limits and the Epics are LONG:

King of diamonds, king of spades / Hades was king of a kingdom of dirt / Miners of mines, diggers of graves / They bowed down to Hades who gave them work / And they bowed down to Hades who made them sweat/Who paid them their wages and set them about / Digging / And dredging / And dragging the depths of the earth / To turn its insides out (Vermont, Concept Album, NYTW)

And he bowed down to no one, below or above / 'Til the arrow of Eros struck him in the heart / And the king of the underworld fell in love / With a woman who walked in a garden (London)

And the earth warmed over in the dead of winter / The stillborn spring lay cold beneath / Summer gave a stormy sermon / Autumn walked in its wake like a wreath / And the people moved like weather patterns / Looking for shelter, looking for warmth / Helter-skelter, the four winds scattered / The scavengers over the ravaged earth (Vermont)

And a million feet that fell in line / And stepped in time with Hades' step / And a million minds that were just one mind / Like stones in a row / As stone by stone / Row by row / The river rose up (Concept Album, NYTW)

Hades is king of the scythe and the sword / He covers the world in the color of rust / He scrapes the sky and scars the earth / And he comes down heavy and hard on us (Concept Album, NYTW)

And the sun rose and fell in his chest as he held her / He felt the earth moving without and within / And there were no words for the way that he felt / So he opened his mouth and he started to sing (London)

The heart of the king is a tinderbox / That he has to keep under lock and key / That it not catch fire inside of his chest / 'Cause a lover's desire is a mutiny / A lover's desire is a wilderness (Vermont)

In the dark of the mine, he is trying to fill / The hole that his lover has left in his arms / With the silver and gold / He can have and hold / Not half, but whole / All to himself (Broadway previews, with some lines from Vermont)

(Source: Anaïs Mitchell, Working on a Song)

[thesweetnessofspring]

The West End lyric change for Epic III seems to (in part) be pushing more and more for Orpheus and Eurydice to mirror Hades and Persephone. Not only does Orpheus "know how it was" to fall in love, but now he knows "how it is" to be left alone like Hades. There's that new hole of doubt that is there in his mind as he tries to take Eurydice home.

[foultaintedflesh]

i think i like the idea of orpheus (a man who has always had a chorus behind him echoing his every hymn) in the moment where he stand before the lord of the dead there is nothing. not a word from his friends not a word from his audience not a word from the fates and not a la from his chorus. orpheus is alone and begging a god to see the world as he sees it and to love in a way that he had before, but now lost in something less than a memory. that he alone could strum the heartstrings of a god to recall a memory the world has nearly forgotten. and he didn't need his mother's grace to do it.

[knocking-on-peoples-non-doors]

may 22nd, 2024