Source : the age
By Cameron Woodhead
MUSICAL THEATRE
Hadestown ★★★★
Her Majesty’s Theatre, until July 6
Ancient Greek and Roman myths involving the underworld tend to agree on the ease with which mortals can find the road to hell. In Anais Mitchell’s folk-musical Hadestown – a retelling of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, draped in a distinctly American mythos and musicality – the road becomes a railway line, and Hades a pinstripe-suited robber baron, whose train ferries denizens of jazz-age speakeasies to “eternal overtime” in a factory at the end of the line.
Christine Anu as Hermes and Elenoa Rokobaro as Persephone in a scene from Hadestown.Credit: Penny Stephens
The other point on which the myths agree is how difficult the underworld is to escape. As Dryden put it in his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid:
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labour lies.
We know that Orpheus will fail, that a fatal glance backward will condemn Eurydice to the underworld forever, but the tragic love story swells with every repetition and Christine Anu’s Hermes – glam emcee in this steampunk adaptation – is determined they’re going to tell it anyway.
If Hadestown is too schematic to provide much emotional depth or tragic catharsis, it is musically superior to most Broadway blockbusters. This production delivers Mitchell’s score (which started as a concept album and bloomed into a stage show) with propulsive catchiness and assurance.
It’s usually billed as a folk-musical, though the range of popular music referenced is much wider than that term suggests.
Noah Mullins as Orpheus and Eliza Soriano as Eurydice.Credit: Penny Stephens
Anu unleashes brassiness for the opening scene-setter, Road to Hell. Adrian Tamburini’s Hades has a gravelly, embittered bass with dark country vibes going on – infernal shades of Johnny Cash or Nick Cave or even Tom Waits lurking in the low notes.
Opposite him, Elenoa Rokobaro plays a Persephone loosened by moonshine, tearing up jazz and blues numbers in Dionysian style.
Noah Mullins faces the daunting vocal challenge of channelling Orpheus, a Muse’s son, whose song can charm even the lord of the underworld. Their sustained falsetto only occasionally sounds strained – a superhuman feat in itself – with the return to a mortal register catching a more anthemic sound, sometimes augmented by choric harmonies.
And Eliza Soriano covered Eurydice on opening night, playing her as a pop-punk pocket rocket so impoverished, so downtrodden by the world, that she chooses her fate. Having said that, the Fates themselves (Sarah Murr, Jennifer Trijo, Imani Williams) are such an irresistible trio vocally, such decisions are never fair.
This production of Hadestown delivers the score with propulsive catchiness and assurance.Credit: Penny Stephens
A full complement of musicians onstage thoroughly enlivens proceedings and plays to the show’s greatest strength. Featured solos from Griffin Youngs on jazz trombone are an unexpected highlight.
Some of the visual production elements and world-building is less cogent and inspired, although the doomed walk out of the underworld proves atmospheric, rendered through umbral lighting design and haze effects.
Shadows of contemporary US politics don’t quite coalesce or fit easily into the myth’s emotional logic. Hades is building a Trumpian wall, for instance, to keep poor people out of his kingdom, who knows why. Still, Hadestown doesn’t have to make sense at every level. Few musicals do, and the sweep and surge of the show’s score carries us to hell and back with conviction and charm.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
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