Like Rent, Spring Awakening, and Hamilton before it, Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown, the 2019 Tony winner for Best Musical, revitalizes the genre in the most electrifyingly original of ways.

Mitchell’s Tony-nominated book and her Tony-winning music and lyrics take as their point of departure the millennia-old tale of Greek hero Orpheus, who trekked all the way down to the depths of hell to restore his beloved Euridice to the world of the living (and if you don’t know how the Greek myth ends, I’ll leave it for you to discover that in Hadestown).

Also along for the ride are god-and-goddess couple Hades and Persephone, the latter of whom is privileged to spend half of the year “Livin’ It Up On Top” before being forced back down under to spend the next six months in hell as our narrator Hermes ties it all together in song.

With only occasional snippets of spoken dialog, Hadestown’s sung-through format requires careful attention to the lyrics being sung, so I highly recommend reading a detailed synopsis before you go. (I didn’t and wish I had.)

But even if you miss a good chunk of the plot, that shouldn’t stop you from falling under Hadestown’s intoxicating spell.

To begin with, there’s Mitchell’s music, a heady mix of blues, folk, and New Orleans-style jazz performed by a sensational on-stage band (including actors doubling as musicians) under conductor-pianist Nathan Kogi’s expert music direction.

Add to that some trenchant political commentary (Hades has his workers building a wall to “keep out the enemy … because that want what we have got”) and you’ve got a musical that is as contemporary as musicals get.

Indeed, so thrilling are Hadestown’s music and lyrics and the story they have to tell that the show would probably earn cheers even if performed on a bare stage.

That being said, it’s hard to underestimate the contributions made by a design team whose collaborative efforts have contributed greatly to Hadestown’s “event status” on Broadway and on tour.

Rachel Hauck won a much-deserved Tony for her atmospheric Big Easy-inspired set bathed in saturated greens and red by Bradley King’s Tony-winning lighting, and though Michael Krass’s costumes lost to the legendary Bob Mackie’s for The Cher Show, they are a stunning mix of glamour and grunge.

Rachel Chavkin’s Tony-winning direction is a marvel of imagination and panache, and the performances that she has elicited from cast member after cast member are nothing short of miraculous.

Not only that, but the casting choices made for the musical’s First National Tour reveal a director willing to go in entirely different directions when taking the show on the road.

Boy-next-door perfection as Orpheus, fire-haired Nicholas Barasch makes even the highest of high notes seem effortless, and petite Morgan Siobhan Green (Eurydice) proves the most incandescent of leading ladies with the crystal-clearest of sopranos.

Kimberly Marable’s Persephone is a veritable force of nature, basso profundo Kevyn Morrow is a truly imposing presence as Hades, and as Hermes, Tennessee born-and-bred singer/songwriter Levi Kreis positively reinvents the role that won a decades-older André De Shields an Outstanding Featured Actor Tony.

Belén Moyano, Bex Odorisio, and Shea Renne burn up the stage as The Fates. (Dreamgirls you have met your match.)

As for Lindsey Hailes, Chibueze Ihuoma, Will Mann, Sydney Parra, and Jamari Johnson Williams, the fivesome add up to the hardest-laboring “Work Chorus” you’re likely to see and hear all year.

Not only do all of the aforementioned performers sing to perfection, they dazzle equally when executing choreographer David Neuman’s Tony-nominated dance moves, with additional Tonys deservedly won by sound designers Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz and orchestrators Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose.

Tyla Collier, Ian Coulter-Buford, Alex Lugo, Eddie Noel Rodríguez, and J. Antonio Rodriguez are swings. Joel Rosen is production stage manager.

Hadestown’s fellow 2019 Tony nominees Tootsie (now playing at the Dolby) and The Prom (coming to the Ahmanson in August) make it clear that there’s still a place on Broadway for shows in the classic “musical comedy” mode, but it’s groundbreakers that propel the genre forward in thrilling new directions, and new musicals don’t get any more thrillingly ground-breaking than Hadestown.

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

–Steven Stanley
April 27, 2022
Photos: T Charles Erickson

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Anaïs Mitchell, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review