Hadestown

“CRITIC'S PICK “The sumptuous, hypnotic and somewhat hyperactive musical...Chavkin and her creative team have saved ‘Hadestown’ on its way uptown by turning it into something very much warmer...The story is clearer...’Hadestown,' even with the heat turned up, is still a somewhat abstract experience...Mitchell develops her larger themes mostly through metaphor. This can get tiring; even though so much of what happens happens beautifully.”

“With its earthly delights more or less intact, this perfectly heavenly musical should stick around for a while....Although the production has lost some of the electricity that goes with playing in the round, Chavkin...has done a super job of adapting this pretty thing for a proscenium stage...The world on top looks a bit like New Orleans...But the real action happens in hell, depicted here by the entire company in a rousing number, 'Way Down Hadestown,' that could make the dead dance.””

““A seamless theatrical experience, this beguiling, virtually sung-through musical is notable for the expressive beauty of its score, the dark imagination of its stage pictures and the clarity of its storytelling. Performed by a first-rate cast and played with spirited feeling by seven onstage musicians, it arrives on Broadway with a furnace-like blast of creativity...Though it ends on a note of desolate loss, this spellbinding musical sends you out on a high.”

““Mitchell’s fizzy, moody, thrilling new musical....Although the narrative has gained some bulk since 'Hadestown’s' Off Broadway run, it is still wight-thin...Yet somehow that hardly matters: ‘Hadestown’ sweeps you up in its atmospherics and in the intensity of its eco-Marxist vision of solidarity and the liberating potential of art...Most important, it has Mitchell’s score: a joyful combination of folk, pop, Dixieland and blues that will make you want to rehear it as soon as the lights come up.””

““’Hadestown’ has arrived...And its current manifestation feels lush, vigorous, and formally exciting, not to mention witchily prescient...As an intricate and gorgeous feat of songwriting, as a vehicle for dynamite performances, as a visionary long-term collaboration and a courageous experiment with form, ‘Hadestown’ is cause for celebration...Mitchell’s lyrics are image-rich and clever, her tunes exhilarating...Page and Gray are the twin sensations of the show.””

““Hadestown” isn’t perfect, but it’s so fresh that you’ll gladly look past its forgivable flaws and savor the kaleidoscopic stylistic variety of Ms. Mitchell’s score...Mitchell’s down-home score is the incontestable star of the show...Mitchell’s songs are beautiful but undramatic...Chavkin’s endlessly varied direction and Neumann’s dances help to keep things on the move...Would that ‘Hadestown’ were a bit shorter, too, but there’s no point in fussing over a show as rich as this one.””

““The lugubrious new Broadway musical that takes us to hell and back, via a jazz and blues-fueled account of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice...The embellishing of the myth, through an assembly line of sound-alike songs and mechanistic dance sequences, rambles on...and, only occasionally, with any inspirational joy, or heart...The plot comes across as an accessory to the production’s style rather than the other way around. It’s not a winning formula.””

““The most thrilling new original musical of the season...Carney’s is perhaps the riskiest interpretation...The choice might strike some as mannered, but it worked for me...With an ending as moving as anything on Broadway – and for hades’ sake, don’t leave before the cast finishes its curtain call – ‘Hadestown’ stands alongside Fish’s ‘Oklahoma!’ and Sher’s ‘Mockinbird’ as this Broadway season’s visionary triumvirate, looking to the past and feeling undeniably, stirringly now.””

““As far as tales as old as time go, the stories of Greek mythology are pretty high up there...But there’s little that feels old or stately about the way those stories are told in ‘Hadestown’...With a journey to the underworld that feels like it sprung forth as something entirely new...And while the second act slows down at points, as the story builds toward that fated journey back to the surface, ‘Hadestown' is a trip to Hell that’s dark and tragic but spellbinding all the same.””

““The thrillingly alarmist new Broadway musical with the score that feels like it comes from somewhere deep in the American gut...An eye-popping, mythological blend of steampunk...’Hadestown’ feels like the most relevant and resistant musical in town, but it never comes off as shrill or moving in some kind of dull lockstep with all the other self-aware plays and musicals lamenting Trump’s America by playing tritely to the choir, critics and all.””

““For a show about hell, ‘Hadestown’ doesn’t have much heat...This classic tale of love — he looks back, she gets trapped in the underworld for all eternity — is still too slick and sterile for us to give a damn about her damnation...The sluggish musical mostly honors the framework of the ancient Greek tragedy...On the whole, Mitchell’s sung-through bluesy score is quite beautiful, if a better fit for a Starbucks than a Broadway theater.””

““The cast is rich with charismatic worthies...Less fruitful is Carney’s Orpheus...But that’s a minor quibble compared to the structural hurdles Chavkin & Co face: the theatrical flimsiness of the source, and the limitations of pop songs in a theatrical context...The sameness of the sonic landscape grows monotonous. The plot is just circling; we’re no closer to the characters...Many talented people worked on it, and there are a dozen lovely songs, but I wish they were in a better package.””

“Diverse casting choices morph these characters iconic, universal allegories.”

““’Hadestown’ is the mythological story told here through well-crafted music and an imaginative book...The cast is accompanied by a superb on-stage band, bringing fresh creativity to this musical season...The production values are lively and colorful...Under the direction of Rachel Chavkin, this stage brings a bright freshness to a classic tale and ‘Hadestown’ is definitely a must-see for this season.””

“'Hadestown' is probably the most exciting musical to be seen in New York at present with its all-inclusive staging, ingenious design, classic story and colorful score in various styles and genres. Credit director/developer Rachel Chavkin with the imagination to not only conceive this production but also to make it all work. If you have seen it in its Off Broadway incarnation it is vastly different with many new songs and an entirely different staging. Miss it at your own peril.”

“Quite possibly the most exciting new musical of the Broadway season...It also takes the nod for most-improved new musical...It is also very much a musical for our times, set in a world out of joint...The central genius of Mitchell's conception is that jazz/blues music -- a folk idiom that notes the world's wicked ways with a glint in its eye and a today-we-dance attitude -- is the right choice to revivify this story for a contemporary audience.”

““All the changes accomplished something of a miracle. The book and music are the same yet it's now very much a Broadway worthy musical...The Broadway staging is stunning...The real star of ‘Hadestown’ no matter where it's set is the music presented...The lyrics throughout are also very fine, and, thanks to the small on stage band and lack of Broadway's usual excessive amplification, can be clearly understood and appreciated.””

““The ‘Road to Hell’ has never been finer...With Mitchell’s spectacular retelling of the old Orpheus myth...It’s clear from the hot and fiery opening that...Chavkin has a pure vision of tense and muscular motion...The songs are beautiful...’Hadestown’ delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience, filled to overflowing with passion, artistry, and love, even as are hearts are crushed in the end by our human frailties.”

“'Hadestown' is the best new musical I have seen in years...overflowing with rich, lively music...The act-one closer, 'Why We Build the Wall,' was written long before our current national nightmare and yet describes it with more elegance than any attempt I have seen to account for Trump on stage.”

“'Hadestown' is easily the most tautly constructed and beautifully realized musical on this side of 'Hamilton' —a riveting, heart-wrenching, and sumptuous folk opera that vibrantly renders some of mankind’s oldest and most enduring myths as an epic and compelling piece of modern musical theatre...'Hadestown' is a triumph of craft and imagination, boldly poetic, rousingly political, and vividly beautiful. If I could live in the magic and the majesty of this musical, I would.”

““An ambitious mix of the hipster and the precious...Flawless staging...Mitchell’s diverse score, some of which is thrilling, some dull...’Hadestown’ is full of feeling, movement, and journeys to the dark side, though it strains for profundity and is a bit twee in trotting out old-time views of young love...If the whole isn’t greater than the sum of its parts, ‘Hadestown’ still has effective elements that come together for the best atmosphere on Broadway.””

“Tunefully delicious, theatrically tasty…While not its strongest feature, 'Hadestown''s book now seems a fine wine accompaniment to a spellbindingly scrumptious theatrical feast…These factors seem secondary now; enough is revealed by Hermes' narration to serve the story and characters It seems far more dramatically fleshed out than I remember, and many will be emotionally moved by its tragic story.”

“Going to hell has never been as much fun as seeing a performance of Anaïs Mitchell’s musical 'Hadestown'...Michael Krass’ costumes for the Chorus in the underworld are outstanding, as is the visually stunning dance number choreographed by David Neumann done with headlamps and swinging lights. And if the love story between Orpheus and Eurydice didn’t smolder, Patrick Page and Amber Gray set the house on fire as Orpheus and Persephone.”

““Chavkin has created a hip and wholly inventive production that combines the contemporary and the timeless...She’s restaged it for a proscenium instead of it playing it in the round as she did downtown...She’s also added an ensemble of dancers to fill out her imaginary world and, most importantly, she’s recast some of the principal roles and allowed the new actors to bring their distinctive flavors to her still-savory stew...The show remains pretty close to perfect too.””