Hadestown has travelled a long road: first a concept album, then an off-Broadway production, later a well-designed National Theatre production, and now a Tony-winning success on both Broadway and the West End. I have very mixed feelings towards it.
I first saw Hadestown at the Olivier in 2018, in a world that felt both similar yet distant. The production reimagines Greek mythology through a modern lens that is at the same time intriguing and perplexing. Hades (Chris Jarman) and Persephone (Nicola Roberts) love each other, so they have this six month agreement. She escapes to the world above for summer and wine, while his loneliness blooms into an empire of iron, mine and oil. Poet musician Orpheus (Dylan Wood) falls for Eurydice (Desmonda Cathabel), but they need to feed themselves with bread, not love.
Hadestown is a modern fable about capitalism and industrialisation. Hades, the capitalist overlord, a tycoon presiding over an industrial empire, chants his anthem, “Build the Wall”. This song once resonated with contemporary American politics but now feels chillingly prophetic. Opposed to him is Orpheus, a Rousseau-like anti-capitalist who naively believes love and nature can save the world. He does, indeed, in a dreamlike moment where Hades retrieves love. But the younger generation needs a test: do not look back. Show your courage.
The current West End cast adds its own shades to this parable. Cathabel’s Eurydice is more sophisticated and self aware than Eva Noblezada’s earlier, more innocent interpretation. Cedric Neal’s Hermes begins with a playful sassiness but ends up as compassionate. Jarman’s Hades laces menace with humour, while Roberts captures Persephone’s flamboyance and fragility in equal measure. The Fates (Allie Daniel, Melanie Bright, Lauran Rae) provide a relentless chorus commentating on the story, and the ensemble delivers incredible stamina for excessive singing and dances well choreographed by David Neumann.
Created by Anais Mitchell (Music, Lyrics and Books) and directed by Rachel Chavkin, Hadestown is a eulogy to industrialised America. However, I am still quite perplexed by Mitchell’s overall agenda. At the heart of the show, between myth and modern allegory, between archetypal tropes and individual characters, the narrative struggles. For instance, Hades as industrial baron who seizes Persephone as Nature works beautifully as metaphor, but how does that align with their portrayal as a middle aged couple, still in love, but navigating their loneliness and desire?
There is also a hidden throughline of fear embedded in the story. Not just the fear of losing loved ones, but also the fear of real courage, real revolution. In the second half, Eurydice is part of the ensemble — those oppressed labourers in Hadestown. When Hades promises he will give her back, his test is actually greater than that: Orpheus has to show those people the road to freedom, the path beyond Hades’s wall. This time he fails, but as Hermes says, they should not give up singing, and we should not give up hoping.
