#the Orpheus and Eurydice parallel works just as well when the roles are reversed

[fan-a-tink]

Everyone asking for a scene in season 2 where Charles is missing and Edwin is the one who either goes feral or has to rescue Charles, have you forgotten about the case of the devlin house? Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see more of this as well, but we already had the scenario where Charles is lost and Edwin does the rescuing. And not only did Edwin give us one of his most devastating lines - I could… we could lose Charles - but he was also absolutely determined to save Charles and did so all on his own when Crystal got harassed by David. He was kind of like beyond panic and just tunnel-vision focussed on getting Charles out of that trauma-loop.

Edwin Payne would go to hell and back for Charles Rowland just as much as the other way around.

[finelythreadedsky]

semi-coherent hadestown thoughts

ok the come home with me/wedding song and epic ii/chant sequences are SO GOOD!!! you can really hear the song in progress and how it is very much not finished, you can hear orpheus working through his creative process and trying to figure it out. and it’s so reflective of how the epics have worked out too! we’ve seen so many different versions of them as anais mitchell has worked through HER creative process to get to this point and i love that meta view into artistic production

(i’ve decided that it’s better to suspend disbelief and assume that the section before way down hadestown takes place over a longer period of time-- a whole summer, since we see persephone leaving for the end of summer then, and she’s with hades during road to hell, so that could be the previous winter. oh and that makes the show take a full year which is cool and brings it around in a cycle.)

reeve carney’s orpheus is so very EARNEST!!! so tentative but so sweet and sincere. that took a lot of getting used to for me but it makes for such lovely character dynamics and seems so realistic in a way that actively works against trying to see orpheus as an archetypal figure-- he’s just one man. and it does so well with setting up doubt comes in because he’s always been a little unsure of himself

and eva noblezada’s eurydice-- spunky, scruffy, scrappy, and such a different person than orpheus. it somehow fits in a sort of opposites attract way that is the complete reverse of the dynamics the characters used to have: eurydice is the confident one who knows how the world works, orpheus is the one who’s unsure of who he is in relation to her and the world. just thinking about the vast difference between eva’s voice and characterization and anais’s on the concept album... wow eurydice’s come so far in so many different incarnations

i’m still not over how eurydice genuinely believes in orpheus and his ability to sing the spring back again. it takes so much vulnerability from her and at nytw eurydice really wasn’t all the way there but she really does believe in him and the power of song. despite how unfinished his song is every time she hears it she sees what it could do and what the world could be even when orpheus isn’t sure

i’m also really grateful that persephone’s apparent/potential alcoholism is something that’s not taken lightly in the script. the role of alcohol as a part of her character has grown a lot with every iteration and it’s acknowledged as an unhealthy way she tries to cope with who she and hades have become (i am kind of disappointed that the amazing imagery of our lady of the underground isn’t really translatable to the stage because i love persephone as a speakeasy owner selling the workers illegal bits of sunshine and summertime and mortal life and i kind of wish that could have been depicted literally)

oh and i lOVE the way way down hadestown reprise explains the lyrics of flowers, which i’ve always loved but thought didn’t really fit with the whole stage show (still interpreting “i trembled when he laid me out” as about orpheus burying her though. there was so much potential for weird staging there to parallel all i’ve even known!!! but glad they didn’t take that route, it would’ve distracted from eva)

i maintain that the first half of the original if its true could have been included as a leadup to the current version. that would have been so beautiful and shown us orpheus turning outward from internal grief and despair to collective outrage and action, but i guess it would have made the song pretty long. i think it an extended version would have made such a cool climax for the second act, but it probably would have also stolen the thunder from epic iii a little.

rip persephone’s verse in chant reprise, but i get that the intention was to have persephone be struck by orpheus’s song in epic iii just as much as hades so she can’t seem to be affected or reminiscing about how things used to be before that

i still love the original epic ii and iii lyrics (gorgeous metaphors very connected to classical literature) but this is. Good Stuff (tm). and now we have all of them! on june 7th i’m gonna line up all the concept, nytw, and broadway epics to create the Ultimate Epic (tm) and it will be like half an hour i’m so excited

i wonder if there were copyright issues with the afghan folk song that has been lover’s desire up to this point? the current version is what orpheus is singing in chant, so it ties the scene more firmly to the song of their love and implies that that melody is how the old song that forms epic iii ends

i really did think they were going to cut word to the wise for broadway. take that as you will.

that last part of his kiss the riot!!! hades is singing about himself and he realizes it!!! he’s testing orpheus as a proxy for himself-- if orpheus cannot trust a woman he cannot see, why should hades even try? but orpheus fails and hades DOESN’T give up. he commits to persephone spending the right amount of time away from him even if it seems so long before even waiting to see whether orpheus fails the task he has set for him-- it’s time for spring because it’s time for you to go even if i don’t want you to, and wait for me/i will is don’t come get me until it’s the right time (just like in the song versions, wait for me and trust that i’m coming) and he agrees

and of course, wait for me and the reprise are STUNNING as always but somehow even more so