#the entire audience is washed in golden light and orpheus is there in the centre and you feel like springtime has arrived

[eerna]

West End 2024 arrives with yet another new version of Epic III. Once again, the lyrics are dumbed down in favor of spelling out the point of the song, and sadly the part that got axed is another NYTW/London original. Once again we sacrifice the beautiful imagery and character work ("And what has become of the heart of that man/Now that the man is king?") in favor of Orpheus repeating that he knows how Hades feels ("I know how it is because he is like me/I know how it is to be left all alone"). But what makes me especially sad is that it also gets more specific about who the verse is about: "His work never done, his war never won/Will go on forever whatever the cost/‘Cause the thing that he’s building his wall around/Is already lost" can't be interpreted in any way except Hades and Persephone. But the original, "So he keeps his head low, he keeps his back bending/He's grown so afraid that he'll lose what he owns/But what he doesn't know is that what he's defending/Is already gone", describes BOTH men. It uses the vocabulary from Chant, when Hermes is trying to warn Orpheus to look up because he is so consumed by his work that he didn't notice Eurydice left, and the workers' plight, to describe Hades himself. These lyrics hit much harder, presenting Hades as a regular man on the same level as Orpheus or any of the residents of the Underworld. Orpheus sings about himself, and Hades sees himself in him, and he breaks down. We don't need Orpheus telling Hades that they are the same, Hades knows it, and it is the final straw.

And that means that my quest for the definitive version of Epic III continues, my goal now even further away than back when I first wrote this post. The show keeps evolving with each production and I hope one day we'll get our time to shine <3

the effect of first time hearing the chorus joins Orpheus in Epic III is the closest humanity has gotten to magic