‘Hadestown’ goes to some dark and moody places

Hades city

Music, book and lyrics by Anaïs Mitchell, developed with and directed by Rachel Chavkin, choreographed by David Neumann, musical accompaniment and vocal arrangements by Liam Robinson. At the Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St. W., through August 20. Mirvish. com or 1-800-461-3333

“Way down under the ground”: It’s not the place you’d expect a big-hit Broadway musical to go.

But even the title hints that “Hadestown” goes to some dark and moody places.

Anaïs Mitchell’s celebrated tuner combines ancient myths, musical influences from roots to show tunes and stage bravado into a celebration of love’s ability to momentarily pierce the oppressive weight of capitalism.

The show was nominated for 14 Tony Awards in 2019, winning eight, including Best Musical and Best Score. Mirvish Productions is hosting the show’s North American tour at the Royal Alex for seven weeks before continuing to even more Canadian cities, including Edmonton, where the show ran in 2017 as part of its twelve-plus year development period.

In keeping with current Broadway trends, the show’s style is highly presentational, by which I mean it tells its material as stories rather than inviting the audience into a fictional universe. It’s a show that enjoys putting on a show. In the first issue, a narrator named Hermes (Nathan Lee Graham) introduces the main characters and the general direction the story is taking: a “Road to Hell”.

The distancing devices worked effectively on me, perhaps to a fault: I found myself more impressed than moved, but many others seemed swept up. A moment in act two where the magical appearance of a red rose affirms the power of love led to a collective gasp and sigh.

Here, director Rachel Chavkin extends her reputation for creating intoxicatingly detailed stagings designed to transport audiences into an overall setting and mood (the musical that made Chavkins famous on Broadway, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 “, will be getting a Toronto production from Crow’s Theater and Musical Stage Company later this year).

Rachel Hauck’s set is inspired by New Orleans locations, including Preservation Hall, and evokes both a speakeasy and a Greek amphitheater, places where the community gathers to witness. Eric Kang’s seven-piece band performs on stage, sitting on risers and looking down at the action. The show immediately takes on a bluesy vibe with an opening solo on trombone performed by Emily Fredrickson, whose amazing musical abilities were one of the highlights of the evening.

Through Hermes’ narration, we are introduced to the two intertwining myths that make up the plot: the love story between aspiring songwriter Orpheus (J. Antonio Rodriguez) and floaty Eurydice (Hannah Whitley), and the fraught union of Persephone (Maria- Christina Oliveras) and Hades (Matthew Patrick Quinn).

Part of the show’s fun for theater buffs will be spotting internal references to other musicals: with his guitar slung over his shoulder, constantly distracted by the one great song he’s trying to write, Orpheus echoes Roger in “Rent,” while Graham’s squiggly, expressive Hades conjures up Ben Vereen as the lead in “Pippin.” The use of stock microphones reminded me of “Girl From the North Country” and helps set the action around the time of the Great Depression.

The structure is that of a song cycle, with relatively little spoken dialogue. Two choruses weave in and out of the action: a girl-group-esque trio of Fates (Dominique Kempf, Belén Moyano, and Nyla Watson) and a five-person ensemble who begin as community observers and turn into downtrodden, impersonal workers as the action moves late in the first act, to the underworld lair of Hades.

This is achieved through a monumental set and light shift: the walls vibrate, a wall of LEDs light up, fog pours in and the disturbingly believable effect is that the entire stage moves downwards. All of that was hugely impressive, but the added effect of beams of light hitting the audience’s eyes directly pushed this sequence over the edge from intoxicating to pummeling.

Quinn’s extraordinarily resonant voice and commanding stage presence as the pinstriped, pompadoured boss Hades made him the standout performer. Persephone’s role in the story is pivotal: she spends six months above ground and is a force of light and positivity, beautifully telegraphed by her initial bright green costume (the gorgeous designs are by Michael Krass). The conflict for her character is to resist Hades’ power and maintain her connection to the living world. While Oliveras sings beautifully, her performance doesn’t fully capture the character’s inner turmoil.

There’s also a spark missing between Rodriguez’s Orpheus and Whitley’s Eurydice: individually beautifully sung, the performances don’t quite convince of a passionate connection, though this is partly due to the director’s choice of having performers play for the audience rather than for each other .

Chavkin’s physical staging includes a number of gripping motion sequences in which David Neuman’s choreography and a stage revolve to evoke the oppressive world of submission under Hades’ reign. All the technical and staging elements come together in the climax of Orpheus and Eurydice’s journey back to Earth, so that they really seemed to move through space and time, when in fact they mostly walked in place.

It is largely Mitchell’s score that has helped the musical gain a youthful fan base, and her ability to translate multiple musical influences from jazz to blues to roots into a believable musical theater score is indeed miraculous (her surprise performance on the stage on opening night to sing an encore). with the cast was a highlight). It’s a cast album I’ll be returning to and “all the way down, Hadestown” is a great earworm.

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