Hadestown

 Hadestown

Hadestown is a breath of fresh air. It is everything I wish myth retelling novels were, it is everything myth prevails for, and it is everything music and the arts exist for. For a story and a soundtrack originating in 2006, Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown could not be more relevant or urgent right now. It is set in no real time or place, and its musical and narrative origins are distant, jumbled, and hybrid. There are shadows of a climate catastrophe, whisperings of socioeconomic revolution, but always the promise of art - music and song and all the emotions they carry. Because Hadestown does feel like a promise. One person declaring their love and acting upon that feeling. One person leading another out of darkness to in turn lead others towards freedom. We are not guaranteed a way out, but if we can learn something, if we can make some small difference to the world we live in right now, that is enough. Hadestown will I hope, I fear, never stop being performed. As long as the world needs change, Hadestown is a vital story. It will continue to inspire and move audiences because those audiences will always need stories like this to incite them to action, to bring clarity to a world in chaos. There is no time like the present, indeed. 

Orpheus had a gift. Not just a beautiful voice and beautiful lyrics, but the power to engage people. To make them listen. To open their hearts and minds to imagine the kind of world they want to live in. To give them the confidence and strength to pursue those visions to reality. But that gift has its price. For every dream there is a reality. For every Orpheus there is Eurydice. A woman seeking to survive any way she can, who cannot put her faith in magic tricks and pretty words no matter how much she yearns for that life. Her reality is a harsh one of labour, transaction, sacrifice, and death. And yet Eurydice is a gift. She makes the beautiful music of Orpheus mean something vital, something alive, something real. She makes Orpheus take his music from an unfinished dream to a realised action. And she gives herself the gift of a love to defy time, language, and death itself. A love which we can still know and speak and sing of thousands of years later. Eurydice makes all the things Orpheus dreams of not just possible but essential. This is a sad tale, but that does not make it an unimportant one. 

Hades may be the antagonist of this story but he too has a powerful positive purpose in Hadestown. It would seem that he embodies all the things wrong with the world: industrialisation, environmental destruction, fear, division, and greed. His mantra is an ode to walls to block out poverty, walls for freedom, and chain gang of his children. It is easy to judge Hades poorly for the world he creates and the philosophy he operates by, but when times are tough and food is scarce, who would, in Eurydice’s place, not at least be tempted? Hades may be unethical, but what he offers are security, safety, and stability - things we all deserve. The Fates are right: if push came to shove, who’s to say we wouldn’t take the deal and sell ourselves?

Persephone is Hades’ conscience, Eurydice’s double, Orpheus’ strength, and her own woman. Without her, so much of the story is thrown off balance. She is the one who gives Hades an opportunity for redemption, to prove he is just someone looking for and deserving of love. Walls, electric lights and power grids all in her name, a strange and artificial love, but an attempt no less - a cry into the abyss, a declaration of affection made real in commodity and product. Those we deem the villains are still just human too. They may not share our beliefs, but that does not mean they are incapable of change, of love, or of goodness. Persephone is the challenge and the resistance because she demands better - not simply because she wants it but because it is right. 

And Hermes, the messenger, the storyteller. Hermes brings it all together. Hermes is the reason why we go to the theatre, to the cinema, why we read, and listen to music and why we write and sing and dance. We want to learn something about ourselves and the world we live in from people who are different to us. We want to see everything and experience everything and know it all. We want the power of Hermes. And what better place to do those things than at the theatre, watching Hadestown? Where the real world goes quiet for a time, and we can get a little glimpse into another world. And who better to guide us than one who has seen it all? 

Hadestown is what I wish every myth retelling would be because it reminds us what those stories are for, why they continue to be told, and why they will endure long after our lifetimes are over. The stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and of Hades and Persephone, may be taken up by new voices, new bodies, and new storytellers, but so they should be. How else can we hope to move forward into the world we want to live in without learning from the past? Hadestown is absolutely a story for the world we live in right now, but it will mean nothing unless we share it with others and take forward its lessons into our own lives.