Hadestown is an up-and-coming Broadway musical based on the concept album by Anaïs Mitchell. It’s about hope, doubt, love, and how Orpheus sucks at keeping his head on straight. Casually set in a post-apocalyptic, climate-screwed world – with a 1930s depression-era blues, train-stations, and hard-times vibe – Hadestown tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice (that’s being the one where Orpheus follows Eurydice into the underworld and wins her back with a song, but then must exit the underworld without looking back to see if she’s following). There’s a lot to say, from the subtle use of an amphitheater for the set, to the amazing use of Hermes as a narrator, to the songs themselves, to Eurydice being given the agency to choose her death, to the use of rattling coins to equate the rattlesnake in the original myth with the train in the musical, to the contrast of Orpheus the dreamer to Eurydice the realist. But I’m going to talk about the soft magic, because the soft magic is what I’m here for.
ALSO: SPOILERS
The Magic System
Some ancestry, my dearies! Orpheus’s parentage is a little squiggy and depends on who you ask. His father may be the god Apollo or Oeagrus, the king of Thrace. Atlas (like, The Atlas) may be involved somewhere in the way-back-when. But his mother is definitely Calliope, the muse of eloquence and epic poetry. His mother is the important bit anyway. Orpheus is a poet, a divine poet, The Poet. So we can assume his magic has to do with poetry, and music since he plays the lyre. Throw in that this is a musical and you better believe this is a music magic system.
At the beginning of the musical, Orpheus tells us he’s writing a song that will bring back spring (spring having high-tailed it for friendlier climates what with Hades and Persephone being on the rocks). But how could a song possibly save spring? NOT THE POINT STOP KILLING THE MOOD. No, but there are emotional reasons that become clear in the climax.
The Trials
THERE ARE THREE BECAUSE OF COURSE THERE ARE.
In the first trial, Orpheus fails. While he’s up in the clouds writing his song, Eurydice is out in the cold trying to get them food and generally keep them alive. She calls out to him, but he’s too lost in his song to hear.
He then must DO something about his love for Eurydice and venture into the underworld. But how will he get past the Fates and all the other nasties? He’ll play his song of course. This is from the original myth, but there’s a twist. Hades is building a wall, to keep the people of Hades safe, to give the people of Hades something to work on, and to keep poverty out (read: to brainwash them). So the trial is less getting past the three-headed dog Cerberus than to get past the wall. So when he sings his song, which is going to bring back spring and move the earth, the earth moves. This is the only time the set (not the floor, that’s a whole other thing) does anything. It moves. It pulls back, breaks apart, and Orpheus gets through.
The third trial is the climax, but I want to break off for a tick to talk about another smidge of small-magic that pops up at this point.
The Walls Have Ears
Eurydice, who is working alongside Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, has begun to forget Orpheus. Here he sings not his song, but “If It’s True.” The workers pick up the song and Eurydice comes to. Why does this work? Because the walls have ears.
You can dismiss this as a really dumb pun if you want, but I can’t emphasize enough how much I love it. The idiom ‘the walls have ears’ may come from the king of Syracuse, who carved out a cave to listen to his political prisoners. So it’s got a pretty literal meaning. The idiom works here at a gut-level because it takes a deeply-rooted idiom and kicks it up to personification. It also works thematically. The people, who have forgotten themselves, are nearly stone themselves, yet they still have ears. The strongest magic in this show is music. If anything can move the stones, it’s Orpheus’s songs.
The Climax
As you would expect, the final trial is when Orpheus sings to Hades to win back Eurydice (now, debateably the final trial is when Orpheus must walk back to the world of the living without looking back to see if Eurydice is following, which, sure. But especially with the way the musical is formatted, that has more to do with the story of Orpheus the dreamer vs. Eurydice the realist rather than the return of spring, so I would say it’s the final trial of a different story-line). In the original myth Orpheus sings a song so beautiful Hades sheds an iron tear and agrees. Pretty straight-forward. Orpheus finishes his song, sings it, woot.
Fortunately I have another twist for you. If you recall, Orpheus promised to bring back spring. His song could just magic spring back, but why settle for that when Hades and Persephone are right there waiting for some character development?
Hermes explains early on that Orpheus has plucked a melody from the earth itself. It’s the melody Hades sang when he first fell in love with Persephone. These days, Hades covets her. He comes to collect her from the world of the living early. But he’s forgotten what it was to love her. When Orpheus begins to sing the melody, Hades starts from his stool, asks where Orpheus got that melody, and near stops the song. Persephone holds him back and Orpheus, who loves Eurydice as much as Hades once loved Persephone, who has literally come through hell to prove his love to Eurydice, keeps singing. Orpheus approaches the end of the song and then trails off. Hades pauses and then finishes the song himself – since it is, after all, his song. Dammit I love it.
Cool prop note: The first time Orpheus sings his melody, a poppy appears in his hand. When Hades finishes the song, a poppy appears in his and spring is returned. New life for the world and his relationship.