When the legendary Hadestown was set to tour in Boston, you can bet your bottom dollar that all the musical theatre fans stopped what they were doing to buy tickets, and we were two of them. Here are some of our favorite aspects of Hadestown in Boston, as well as our few complaints.    

Our Favorite Things

1. The band (especially the trombonist!)

We loved the recognition that the band got in this show. First of all, they played onstage the whole time, which we’d only ever seen in one show before, Come From Away. The trombonist even walked into the middle of the stage with one of the actors during one song, which really helped the band to be interpreted as characters instead of musicians meant to accompany the story rather than be a part of it. It was clear that the characters and their actors appreciated the band: actors would turn to the band while singing and the performers would play off each other’s energy. In “Our Lady of the Underground”, the song Persephone sings to start off the second act, she even mentions each instrumentalist by name, giving the band the celebration they deserve.   

2. The staging

Previously, I had only seen LEGAL ONLY pro-shots because I am a law abiding citizen of the United States, and this was my (Olivier’s) first time seeing a musical live. I was not prepared for how unbelievably immersive the staging would be. At first, the stage seems pretty basic: a tavern for the overworld and a couple seats for the instrumentalists. Hades and Persephone sit on top of the stage, subtly representing their status as gods, which was a nice touch of symbolism. Overall though, this stage is slightly underwhelming during the first few songs. But once we get to “Way Down Hadestown,” a large whole-cast number at the beginning of the first act, the stage reveals its first surprise.

Trains are an extremely important part of the Hadestown lore. It’s constantly emphasized throughout the show; Persephone arrives and leaves through a train, Eurydice leaves the overworld with Hades on a train, and of course, Orpheus leaves the overworld empty-handed through the train tracks that brought him there. If this stage was unable to include a sufficient train, it would be a major criticism. Fortunately and unsurprisingly, this stage delivers here, because when Hades emerges from the wall, we get to see a three-by-three grid meant to represent the all-important vehicle. It’s crude, but creatively effective, and really caught our attention. It also helped that the seats rumbled when the trains arrived and left which really helped immerse the audience into the stage itself. 

However, the most obvious benefit of this set came a dozen songs later, during "Wait For Me", a song where we finally get to see Orpheus arrive to rescue Eurydice. Suddenly, the left and right sides of the stage separating the musicians from the actors expands, and the stage becomes way bigger, subliminally reminding the audience that “we’re not in Kansas anymore”. The new stage has been set, and it makes way for even more jaw-dropping reveals, since there is now space to achieve them. 

Believe it or not though, that’s STILL not the best staging moment in the musical, because that honor goes only to the song “Doubt Comes In”. Already this song deserves merit because it perfectly balances the creepy tone Hades sets with his song “His Kiss the Riot”, but the staging makes "Doubt Comes In" ten times better. Once "Wait For Me (Reprise)" finishes—a criminally underrated song, by the way—the stage pollutes itself with fog and darkness, leaving only a light on Orpheus, as he has to walk out of hell without Eurydice by his side. Whenever he sings, Eurydice is nowhere to be found. However, whenever she starts singing, the stage erupts in light, and Eurydice suddenly appears. If that staging doesn’t leave you on the edge of your seat, no musical ever will.

Overall, the staging in this musical was some of the best we’ve ever seen. It was truly a spectacle to behold, and while the songs were already amazing on the cast recording, the lively stage made them so much more entertaining. 

3. Social Commentary and Historical Parallels 

People commonly interpret Hadestown as representing the Great Depression. In the song “Why We Build the Wall,” the workers in the underworld assert that “the enemy is poverty.” They go on to explain that “we build us the wall to keep us free,” which is similar to how FDR's New Deal set people to work building railroads and other internal improvements so that both they and the country as a whole could earn their way out of the Great Depression. 

“Why We Build the Wall” is just one of the places in the show where the negative qualities of a dictatorship are explored. Hades, the king of the underworld, feeds his workers information about why they are building the wall, and they repeat it brainlessly, exhibiting blind obedience and a loss of individuality. Later in the show, when the workers are starting to agree with Orpheus that Hades isn’t running things the right way, they still speak as a group because the confidence to do things by themselves and the ability to have original ideas have been taken from them. However, when Orpheus tells them that “it isn't for the few to tell the many what is true,” reflecting democratic ideals, they are able to see that the dictatorship they’re living under is harmful because it has stolen their agency over their lives.  

Hades doesn’t only manipulate his workers: throughout the show, the audience can trace aspects of a manipulative relationship between Hades and his wife, Persephone. For example, in the song “Chant,” Hades responds to Persephone’s complaints about his modernization of the underworld by telling her to “think of it as my love.” This is the classic I’m doing bad things, but they’re for your benefit! message that is often used to justify a toxic relationship. Later in the song, Hades threatens to offer his love to someone else if Persephone doesn’t appreciate it, guilting her into staying with him. Additionally, Hades showing up too early to bring Persephone back to the underworld represents his lack of trust for her and his control over her life. 

The main point of Hades showing up too early, however, is to signify winter coming too early because the seasons are messed up. A crucial part of Hadestown’s plot is that spring and fall have disappeared and weather in general is not the way it used to be, which is similar to the effects of climate change on our own world. Although the changing climate in the show is partially due to Hades and Persephone falling out of love, it is also caused by Hades turning the underworld into a place of fossil fuels, electricity, and automobiles, mirroring toxic factors of real-world climate change. Persephone tells Hades that oceans are rising, harvests are dying, and people are starving, but, like politicians and fossil-fuel producers today, Hades is too drunk on power and wealth to care about the plight of the people far above. 

4. Miscellaneous 

Persephone’s dress was the same shape in both acts, but in Act I, it was bright green to signify summertime, and in Act II, it was black to signify wintertime (and mourning). 

The bond between Hermes and Orpheus was sweet and funny. Hermes was a sort of mentor to Orpheus, and his love and exasperation for Orpheus were both evident to viewers. For example, when Orpheus sees Eurydice, Hermes coaches him on how to talk to her (“Don’t come on too strong”), then groans when Orpheus opens with “Come home with me… [I’m] the man who’s gonna marry you.”

When looking at the Broadway cast recording  on Spotify, there are only two songs that play in between when Persephone arrives for the summer and when she leaves for the winter, and one of the two is a whopping forty seconds long. However, between when Persephone leaves for the winter and arrives back for the summer, there are a total of thirty songs—she leaves during "Way Down Hadestown" and doesn’t come back until "Road to Hell (Reprise)." This reflects characters’ frustration that Persephone and summertime leave too soon. 

Besides the trombonist, Audrey Ochoa, we thought that Persephone (played by Kimberly Marable) and Orpheus (played by Nicholas Barasch) gave the best performances. 

Complaints

Even though we loved seeing the orchestra onstage, we didn’t appreciate how the drummer did not get to join their fellow instrumentalists. Even though drums are large, we wish they’d found a way to accommodate them so that the audience could experience seeing the entire orchestra, and the drummer could receive the same level of admiration and support as their peers. 

In our opinion, Orpheus’ guitar looked way too modern. It looked like an electric guitar, which does not suit Orpheus’ personality: he is a kind, gentle poet who would definitely have preferred a classical or acoustic guitar to accompany his attempts to heal nature through music. Orpheus used an acoustic guitar in the original Broadway version, and there was no reason to have changed this.  

The bond between Hermes and Orpheus was not showcased as much after the first third of the show, and we missed it. For example, at the end of Act I, Hermes is downright rude when Orpheus asks where Eurydice went. This bond would have added some much-needed comedic relief to the sorrowful second act.

Most songs in the live version of this musical were done just as well as the cast recording, if not better. However, the very last song, “We Raise Our Cups,” was pretty much ruined. In the cast recording, it has a somber tone that helps convey the tragedy of this story, but in the live version, it’s just Persephone reading her lines to the audience as quickly as possible with no instrumentals. BORING.

Even though we had some complaints, they were few and far between. Seeing Hadestown in Boston was a truly amazing experience and a great start to the return of live theatre.