Review: HADESTOWN at Gammage Auditorium

HADESTOWN has arrived in Sun Devil country for a six day run at ASU's Gammage Auditorium. The 2019 Best Musical Tony Winner succeeds with an expressive, haunting score and the dark imagination of director Rachel Chavkin.

This tragic romance pairs two Ancient Greek love stories; the young, impassioned Orpheus and Eurydice, and the loooong term relationship of Hades and Persephone, the goddess of spring.

Anaïs Mitchell (composer, lyricist, author) premiered her folk-pop and New Orleans style jazz musical in 2006 at a small theatre in Vermont. Unsure where to take the project next, she took the route of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, EVITA, TOMMY, and AMERICAN IDIOT by recording a concept album version. In 2012, she and Chavkin (responsible for the vibrant master-staging of NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812) began reworking HADESTOWN for a return to the stage. It opened off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2016 before moving to London and Ontario for more rewrites. The gritty, minimalist version left behind for an imposing, looming, decorative version more appropriate for the big stage.

In the original Greek myth, [SPOILER ALERT] Orpheus ventures to retrieve his beloved Eurydice who, after a deadly snakebite, has been relocated to Hades. In HADESTOWN, the only significant plot change is a remarkable one. Instead of travel-by-snakebite, Eurydice makes the choice to go to Hades after a run-in with the king of the underworld.

Coupled with a penniless musician, Eurydice has found herself hungry, cold, and vulnerable to an offer from Hades of abundant food and shelter in his foundry-like, basement jazz club version of hell.

Persephone meanwhile is due to return to the underworld herself. She spends half of every year above ground bringing joy and wine to the world at large and the other six months stifled and discontented below ground by Hades' side. The young lovers' arrival leads Persephone to newfound indignation and want for change in the status quo.

Hades grants O and E's escape on the condition that neither look back on their journey home. Increasingly worried he's been tricked by Hades, Orpheus takes a peek behind and sends his beloved back to the underworld.

It's certainly storytelling before story. Hermes (played by a sly and devine Eddie Noel Rodriguez) is our emcee. As the Herald of the Gods, Hermes sets the scene, introduces the characters, and by operating with no fourth wall, keeps the show self-aware. More of a "Here's what happened next..." and "Here's my opinion of that..." type narrator, Hermes himself doesn't move the onstage inner-plot forward, leaving that assignment to The Fates.

Played vibrantly and distinctly by Belén Moyano, Bex Odorisio, and Shea Renee, The Fates are a window into primary characters' decision making. An upside down and twisted version of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS' "Chiffons", their interjections and observations are the characters weighing choices and consequences. It's marvelous. The venue for the main characters' inner-monologues isn't the usual park and bark format. Instead, using The Fates, we hear the inner-monologue and see the external, observable acting at the same time. While Hermes handles the commentary, The Fates advance the plot by narrating everyone's decisions.

Nicholas Barasch is earnest and likable as Orpheus with a voice extraordinarily pleasant. Morgan Siobhan Green as Eurydice is likewise a world class singer and compelling performer. Both actors, though, are undercut by the boilerplate nature of their roles.

We just don't have the same level of empathy for a couple still in the honeymoon phase. Orpheus knows before he's even heard her speak that he wants to marry Eurydice and she is won over almost instantly with (literal) sleight-of-hand. Love-at-first-sight and insta-soulmate devices may jump start the plot, but swing their love generic.

We get much more detail about the LTR of Hades and Persephone. When they interact we can see a millennia of growth and change in their feelings for each other. Their capture of interest puts Orpheus and Eurydice in the background of their own story.

Kimberly Marable as Persephone is an eye magnet. Charming and life of the party, vulnerable and impassioned, she rules every moment she's at the forefront of the story and some of the ones she isn't. A stunning performance worth the price of admission alone.

An incredibly versatile ensemble carries much of the weight, establishing setting both above ground and below. The stage pictures they create using turn-table-ography are impressive and expressive and diligently reset the tone scene to scene. I'd call the group (Lindsey Hailes, Chibueze Ihuoma, Will Mann, Ian Coulter-Buford, Sydney Parra and Alex Lugo) underappreciated, but their curtain call volume rightfully matched the leads.

What is it with musicals and New Orleans infused devils? Hades is evocative of "The Chimney Man" a thinly-veiled Satan serving as a purgatorial prosecutor and judge in JELLY'S LAST JAM, an early 1990s vehicle for Gregory Hines that sorts the life of Jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton. CAROLINE, OR CHANGE has its hellish dryer, and Disney's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG has Dr. Faciler. (Now that I think of it, Keith David, the "How did ya get the beans above the frank?" dad in There's Something About Mary, played the first and third of the above trio, snagging a Tony nom for JELLY'S LAST JAM.) Add HADESTOWN to that list of musicals using the creole devil device to great success.

In this HADESTOWN National Tour, Kevyn Morrow's Hades is masterfully controlled and deliberate, a hypnotic power source for his castmates. His pained decision, influenced by The Fates, to let the lovers return home is the true climax of the story, leaving the lovers' journey and Orpheus' look back as the falling action and resolution (of the show's inner plot, at least).

The outer plot resolves when Hermes declares the show a tragedy they'll tell again and again, if only for the joy of grand performance and the strange but ever-present hope that this time it might end differently.

HADESTOWN is an impressive project with so much to praise and enjoy but all the workshopping in the world can't change the fact that the characters in Greek myths are often painted with broad strokes paper thin.

The Classical template gives Mitchell and the show's skilled designers a jungle gym for emotion, style, and theme, but forces tropes that undermine our human connection with material. The audience was amazed and entertained, leaping to their feet at the first instant of the curtain call, but their eyes were dry. The show doesn't stick the landing because after being told dozens of times that HADESTOWN is a sad, sad tale, it's not.

HADESTOWN plays through April 24th at Tempe's Gammage auditorium.

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