Musical 'Hadestown' at Marcus Center sings an old song with a powerful American accent
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"Hadestown," which won the 2019 Tony Award for best musical, transposes two powerful Greek myths to an America — maybe Depression-era, maybe near-future — ravaged by poverty, fear and climate change.
"It’s an old song / and we’re gonna sing it again and again," croons messenger god and narrator Hermes (Nathan Lee Graham) in the touring Broadway production that opened Tuesday at the Marcus Performing Arts Center. He's referring to the myth of Orpheus, but we also can apply his words to the desperate human willingness to give up anything to escape hunger.
Orpheus (J. Antonio Rodriguez), represented here as a singer-songwriter, loves Eurydice (Hannah Whitley) so much that he descends into the underworld to rescue her. Meanwhile, Hades (Matthew Patrick Quinn), the god of the underworld, is navigating his rocky marriage to Persephone (Maria-Christina Oliveras), who spends half a year with him, plunging the outer world into winter, and half a year above, bringing the return of spring.
Composer-lyricist Anaïs Mitchell also won a Tony for her score. Her jazzy, bluesy, folk-Americana blend of music is the most compelling feature of "Hadestown," enacted Tuesday by a terrific onstage band, with dynamite solo moments by trombonist Emily Fredrickson and some powerful comping by guitarist Michiko Egger. The Fates (Dominique Kempf, Belèn Moyano, Nyla Watson) glide around the stage, goading, commenting and mocking while occasionally rocking accordion and violin. As for Rodriguez's Orpheus, he's traded his lyre for a guitar to support his haunting high vocals.
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of Hades as the personification of evil a la Satan (though the underworld that Mitchell depicts is a hellish one). But Quinn's Hades, like Old Scratch, gets some of the best lines. His deep singing voice plunges into the Thurl Ravenscroft zone as he leads his workers in the litany "Why We Build the Wall," a vision as dark as the end of "1984." But even the imperious god of the underworld can be moved by a poor boy who "could make you see how the world could be, / in spite of the way that it is."
Directed and developed by Rachel Chavkin, the musical "Hadestown" has two important Wisconsin connections. University of Wisconsin alum André De Shields won a Tony for originating the show-stopping role of Hermes on Broadway. And in Mitchell's 2010 concept album version of "Hadestown," Orpheus was sung by Justin Vernon, aka Mr. Bon Iver.
If you go
"Hadestown" continues through May 7 at the Marcus Performing Arts Center, 929 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit marcuscenter.org or call (414) 273-7206.
More: 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Moulin Rouge' top Marcus Center's Broadway series for 2023-'24
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Musical 'Hadestown' sings an old song with a powerful American accent
