Hadestown | Live Show Review – TOP 20 MUSICALS 2024: No 18

Julia Rank
Tuesday, November 26, 2024

The cast use their natural accents which heightens the timeless and universal qualities of the story

Dónal Finn's Orpheus descends into the Underworld (Credit: Marc Brenner)

First produced as an indie project in 2006, Anaïs Mitchell’s musical Hadestown arrives in the West End via a circuitous route. The show was previously seen in the UK for a developmental run of sorts at the National Theatre in 2018 and Rachel Chavkin’s Broadway production has been playing at the Walter Kerr Theatre since 2019, winning eight Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Direction).

Mitchell’s score is a wonder, a ‘musical poem’ based on two Greek myths which comprises individualised numbers featuring modern folk and New Orleans-style jazz influences that flow into each other seamlessly, imbued with irresistible rhythms and poetic language. The West End premiere is aural ambrosia: the individual and collective singing is outstanding and the onstage jazz band directed by Tarek Merchant is a joy (trombonist Daniel Higham comes close to stealing the show). However, the question of how well it works as theatre is less certainly answered.

The scenes on a post-industrial Earth feature a boho-vagabond-style aesthetic, and the theatricality of Chavkin’s initially cramped production comes to life when Rachel Hauck’s set opens up and the multiple revolves are employed. The actors use their authentic accents, including Irish, East Midlands and Trinidadian, suggesting a timeless space that’s also all too timely. Mitchell devised the metaphor of enslaved workers building a wall to keep the boss’s wealth safe and to keep interlopers out some years before Donald Trump’s presidency, and this sense of purgatory is embodied by David Neumann’s sinewy choreography.

Mitchell has talked about the challenge of developing Orpheus, as James Dean-esque swagger in earlier versions didn’t help audiences to warm to him. As played by Dónal Finn, he’s an ethereal Timothée Chalamet type with a honeyed falsetto. Finn does a stellar job of embodying a character who represents the greatest musician the world has ever known; a symbol of hope and idealism, as well as a gauche young Romeo in love. The radiant Grace Hodgett Young confirms her promise as last issue’s Rising Star as a wonderfully earthy, no-nonsense Eurydice, who sheds her tough façade to join in the springtime celebrations, and brings visceral emotional heft to second-act solo ‘Flowers’ as Eurydice begins to lose her memory.

Donning a dapper silver suit, Melanie La Barrie’s Hermes is a mischievous narrator and parental figure to Orpheus who leads us into this allegorical world, and it’s a shame she spends much of the second act sidelined.

As Hades and Persephone (in this version, their relationship started as a love match rather than an abduction), the pin-striped Zachary James glowers thuggishly, while Gloria Onitiri’s moonshine-fuelled hippy party queen snatches every chance she can get to live life to the fullest. The Fates, played by Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne and Allie Daniel, are a formidable trio who sashay ominously while singing in close harmony.

Mitchell is an eminent folk singer-songwriter, and writers from various backgrounds make Musical Theatre all the richer. However, while she developed the show with Chavkin and worked with dramaturg Ken Cerniglia, the wispy threads that hold the fable-like story together make it difficult to emotionally invest in the characters (the Lyric Theatre’s high stage also has a distancing effect). We wouldn’t want the musical flow broken up with chunks of dialogue but the first half struggles to gain momentum and then it peters out in the second half, all despite the beauty of the music throughout.

Hadestown has acquired a passionate fan base and whether a piece of art engages the heart is hugely personal, defying logic and questions of ‘taste’. Furthermore, expectations and images formed in the imagination are slippery things. It’s difficult to resolve how it’s possible to be so moved by the album but less so by the same material presented as part of a three-dimensional theatrical experience.

If this show doesn’t fully succeed dramatically and at times feels more like a luxurious concert or song cycle, it’s certainly worth a trip to the Underworld to experience Mitchell’s sublime music performed live with such panache.