It’s a sad tale. It’s a tragedy. It’s an old tale from way back when.
Messenger god Hermes (André De Shields) bookends the Broadway musical “Hadestown” by telling us exactly what the story holds. So how do you take an ancient Greek myth that most people are familiar with, and make it new?
At the beginning of her singer-songwriter career, inspiration struck Anaïs Mitchell: a melody to the song “Wait for Me.” She reflects, “It came with some long-lost lyrics that seemed to describe the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, which had been a favorite of mine as a kid.” Mitchell spent the coming years crafting a Hadestown concept album. She then collaborated with Rachel Chavkin to shape the music into a complete show, making its Broadway debut in 2019 and winning eight Tony Awards.
Each original cast member left the show at different times, so when it was announced that they would be reuniting to perform for a proshot in London, the buzz was electric. I myself flew to London without a ticket, thankfully securing one the weekend they were filming, which was the only weekend of the whole month that Patrick Page was able to perform due to his torn Achilles.
It was a unique experience, being in a theater full of cameras, with someone stepping out to clap a clapperboard before a live stage musical. We were asked to do some different levels of cheering before the show to create their audio mix options. We were also encouraged to have a great time, and I specifically recall being told to “woop if that’s something you usually do” and to have fun and “just groove.” You can feel it in the recording; the audience is so grateful to be there, because of the legacy the show has garnered, and our second chance at seeing a cast we never thought would reunite in this capacity.
The filmic format provides some intimate shots that the live performances do not. The beginning of the movie features charming dressing room vignettes and pre-show rituals. The rotating stage, with a circle at its center that descends into Hell throughout the show, receives stunning overhead and low-angle shots, showcasing the tops of heads as they rise, or faces peering down at the underworld. The shot-reverse-shot sequence for some scenes offers you two theater showings for the price of one; in a live show, you may only view Orpheus’s or Eurydice’s facial expressions with certain blocking, but the proshot allows you the best seat in the house for every pivotal moment.
Conversely, it doesn’t show the whole picture. In live theater, you have the pleasure of deciding where your eyes wander, whereas film hands you close-ups that focus the narrative. Merrily We Roll Along is almost egregiously guilty of this, and Hamilton does its fair share of highlighting faces and acting performances at the cost of broad stage visuals.
The good news is that’s a great reason to keep seeing live theater. There’s a wide public discussion on whether proshots will incentivize or deter live theater attendance; Hamilton, among other shows, proves that if anything, proshots make viewers more compelled to experience the shows live. The filmed version of “Hadestown” will likely have the same effect, given that its box-office numbers have surpassed Hamilton’s as the highest-grossing live capture.
Page’s injury means he has a large black boot on for the show, and a cane to help him walk. It’s no surprise that they worked with him to ensure he could still get on that stage and seal his legacy in the role, because his voice is the most gravelly, bone-chilling bass that only the original king of Hell could possess. Even with a clunky boot and a cane, his intimidation and swagger are unmatched. The hindrance nearly enhances the character at times, underlining his age and jadedness. He moves like a serpent, ready to pounce.
His counterpart, Amber Gray, is just as captivating. She plays Persephone, wife to Hades, queen of the underworld, and creator of the seasons. Gray’s Persephone is a tortured goddess with a drinking problem, masking her discontentment in her marriage with a plastered-on smile and some chaotic inebriated dance moves. In press for the proshot, Gray says, “I didn’t think of it as making it for film per se. It would’ve been a very different performance. I would’ve toned it down.” She and the crowd chuckle at this, but the comment sections on every post about her performances sing the praises of her outrageously unhinged characterization. It’s powerful live, and it’s eye-catching on camera.
The sparks between Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada are a feat to behold. The pair fell in love while performing as Orpheus and Eurydice in their original-cast days, and got engaged during their London proshot reunion in March 2025. They have since married and have two other co-star experiences in Broadway shows under their belts: “Cabaret” at the West End and “The Great Gatsby” on Broadway. Their intimacy allows them to trust one another, but they still try to separate their roles from their romance, “making sure that it’s not Reeve and Eva on stage. It’s strictly how Orpheus and Eurydice would have interacted with each other,” Noblezada explains.
The weakest element of the show might be the fates, which, in theory, nicely round out the mythological landscape, representing the rocky world that throws Eurydice around, or Hades and Orpheus’s inner fears. The fates play this part well for songs like Eurydice’s weathered exposition in “Any Way the Wind Blows,” or Orpheus’s dark, anxious walk set to “Doubt Comes In.” Where their theatrics become excessive and distracting is, well, a lot of the rest of the show.
Musicals seem to struggle with trimming the fat, always leaving in songs that make their scores imperfect or momentarily boring, an issue that film doesn’t struggle with as much. “When the Chips are Down,” “Nothing Changes,” and “Word to the Wise” could have all been left on the cutting room floor, and Hadestown: The Musical would have not only retained its excellence, but it would have been stronger without the repetitive, sing-song messaging that is already covered by these songs’ neighboring numbers.
The ensemble struggles with some of the same over-the-top performances, particularly juxtaposed with such acting MVPs as this original cast. The show loses its timelessness temporarily at the beginning, with the chorus’s skinny jeans and beanies straight out of a 2012 Lumineers video. But their wardrobe transformation into workers in Hell yields steampunk goggles and overalls, which fit nicely into the dark, eclectic landscape the show creates. The music has a southern Louisiana twang, setting Hell in a railroad, letting the trombone carry us through the tale.
The set is mostly unchanged, relying heavily on the rotating stage, ascending and descending platform, swinging lanterns, and the eventual separation of the backdrop to reveal the bright power-grid lighting of Hell. It works well in Hadestown: The Musical, but it’s a broader habit we’re seeing, where the set designers rely on their audience’s imagination to do the heavy lifting. Call it low funding or artistic choices, but newer Broadway shows are noticeably being outdone by scrappy viral community theaters with elaborate scene changes that do what theater was always meant to do: transport you to somewhere new.
Orpheus descends into the underworld to retrieve his lover, but the story is not reduced to a mere romance. Just as Romeo and Juliet, and even more so its modernized musical “West Side Story,” is a tale about racism and division, this Greek myth becomes a commentary on American capitalism and dictatorship. The two songs that drive this point home are Hades’s bellowing fascist anthem, “Why We Build the Wall,” and Orpheus’s liberating outcry, “If it’s True.”
Hades’s factory oppresses the souls of the dead, but beyond that, his jealousy and bitterness at Persephone’s absence in the summer months cause him to steal her away sooner than he should, leading to failed harvests and starvation on the earth above. It’s not far-fetched to draw a comparison to modern politicians pressing on with factories, fracking, and data centers that contribute to climate change, or conglomerates offering demanding, unethical work for low wages, preying on the economic desperation of their applicants. Some of these examples have only grown more applicable since “Hadestown’s” inception.
Orpheus embodies the story’s message: hope in the face of hardship. But when his worldview is shaken by Hades, doubt comes in, causing him to turn around to look at his lover and damn her to return to Hell.
That’s this iteration of the ending, anyway. In Virgil’s Georgics, he says that Orpheus turns around because “a sudden madness” overtakes him, and, “he stopped, and forgetful, alas, on the edge of light, his will conquered he looked back, now, at his Eurydice.” Most debates have a dominating argument that to love someone is to be unable to resist turning around to see them; that is our humanity.
With so much to say, such powerhouse performances, and an accumulated cult following, it’s a joy to finally see the original Broadway cast’s performances (and a filmed version of the show in general) wind up in the hands of the fans. Pour the wine, it’s summertime, go live it up on top and give this film a watch.
Review Courtesy of Risa Bolash
Feature Image Credit to Bleecker Street