A'ight? Alright.
May. 26th, 2019 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressThe really significantly good thing from today was getting to go see Hadestown! This was extra important to do now, after it was nominated for its fourteen Tonys but before it won any of 'em and therefore became _really expensive and hard to get tickets to_. Having now seen it once, I really think I may do the KChen1 thing and buy a small block of tickets waaaaaay the fuck out in advance, then take whoever wants to go to NYC with me to go see it in exchange for them paying me back. This is a good plan! This is a terrifying plan.
Hadestown is an unbelievably striking show. That's my first and most dazzling impression, that the choreography -both human and mechanical- is absolutely top-notch and as tight as it can be. It is beautiful to watch, absolutely and quite literally breathtaking.
The meta-framing, that you have the orchestra straight up onstage (and at one point Persephone names each one, to thunderous applause) is fantastic. This is a show that knows it's a show and is not afraid to behave like a show. It doesn't _explicitly_ break the fourth wall (well, except for most of what Hermes says), and it certainly doesn't play its fourth wall breaking for laughs, but it does fully recognize that this nightclub we are watching is full of performers, and that heck yes Hermes will gesture to them for the gods and us for the men.
Hades's voice is _amazing_. It is probably the deepest bass I've ever heard sung live, and I would pay Good Quality Money to see the man do a production of Sweeney Todd sometime. All the voices in the show are amazing, of course, (I loved the three different ranges of the sirens, causing our greek chorus to go from high to low in a heartbeat just by changing the focus of which was singing at the moment.) but that guttural resonant bass...just damn!
Sometimes when you go to a live show there is a vague hesitation in the audience at the end --do we stand? Do they deserve it? There was none of that here. The actors came out for bows and we as one flung ourselves to our feet and pounded our hands together in appreciation. I would've screamed my throat raw if the cold I'm fighting hadn't already done the same thing.
The show ends how it _must_ end, and I know how it _must_ end, because I have read greek mythology and Sandman both, and I know what happens to Orpheus in the end. But it's so tightly done, you find your heart pounding in your chest as the end approaches, hoping-wishing-begging maybe it will be different this time. And then the ending proper spools around and wheeewww! It is a tragic ending, because it must be, but at the same time a very very hopeful one.
The war Eurydice has between her heart and her gut, right before she makes her fateful decision is...traumatizing. Thank the gods I have not had to go there, that I can stand by my convictions untested by starvation. This show hits me so hard in my feelings of not signing away what I will not give, of not promising more than I know I could actually share. (This is why I am so rare to say "I would kill" for something, because honestly? Very few things are worth that price. When the devil comes to collect, I don't want to have to convince them it was all just a joke.)
Oh god the song about building the wall (my children, my children). Fucking chilling, fucking dark as hell, fucking *terrifying* the way that voice claws into your brain and asks for the response to its calls, even as you know you shouldn't. Another version of myself (not with my parents, not sick as a dog) and I could let myself fall under that spell, knowing every second I'm a fool. It's not as bad as giving my heart willingly to Hecatae (she kissed me, marked me hers)2, but it's up there in terms of theatre as submission.
I only cried once, and it wasn't where I expected to.
Yeah, I think that's all. Really top-notch show! If you get the chance, definitely take it.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: This is how I saw Hamilton! In an October, KChen emailed me to say "I bought tickets, would you like to pay me back for one of them?" and then I made my way to the city in April and did indeed pay him back and it was a fantastic show.
2: I'm sorry friends, but despite my endlessly TMI nature, some stories really are too personal for me to tell publicly, or largely at all.
Hadestown is an unbelievably striking show. That's my first and most dazzling impression, that the choreography -both human and mechanical- is absolutely top-notch and as tight as it can be. It is beautiful to watch, absolutely and quite literally breathtaking.
The meta-framing, that you have the orchestra straight up onstage (and at one point Persephone names each one, to thunderous applause) is fantastic. This is a show that knows it's a show and is not afraid to behave like a show. It doesn't _explicitly_ break the fourth wall (well, except for most of what Hermes says), and it certainly doesn't play its fourth wall breaking for laughs, but it does fully recognize that this nightclub we are watching is full of performers, and that heck yes Hermes will gesture to them for the gods and us for the men.
Hades's voice is _amazing_. It is probably the deepest bass I've ever heard sung live, and I would pay Good Quality Money to see the man do a production of Sweeney Todd sometime. All the voices in the show are amazing, of course, (I loved the three different ranges of the sirens, causing our greek chorus to go from high to low in a heartbeat just by changing the focus of which was singing at the moment.) but that guttural resonant bass...just damn!
Sometimes when you go to a live show there is a vague hesitation in the audience at the end --do we stand? Do they deserve it? There was none of that here. The actors came out for bows and we as one flung ourselves to our feet and pounded our hands together in appreciation. I would've screamed my throat raw if the cold I'm fighting hadn't already done the same thing.
The show ends how it _must_ end, and I know how it _must_ end, because I have read greek mythology and Sandman both, and I know what happens to Orpheus in the end. But it's so tightly done, you find your heart pounding in your chest as the end approaches, hoping-wishing-begging maybe it will be different this time. And then the ending proper spools around and wheeewww! It is a tragic ending, because it must be, but at the same time a very very hopeful one.
The war Eurydice has between her heart and her gut, right before she makes her fateful decision is...traumatizing. Thank the gods I have not had to go there, that I can stand by my convictions untested by starvation. This show hits me so hard in my feelings of not signing away what I will not give, of not promising more than I know I could actually share. (This is why I am so rare to say "I would kill" for something, because honestly? Very few things are worth that price. When the devil comes to collect, I don't want to have to convince them it was all just a joke.)
Oh god the song about building the wall (my children, my children). Fucking chilling, fucking dark as hell, fucking *terrifying* the way that voice claws into your brain and asks for the response to its calls, even as you know you shouldn't. Another version of myself (not with my parents, not sick as a dog) and I could let myself fall under that spell, knowing every second I'm a fool. It's not as bad as giving my heart willingly to Hecatae (she kissed me, marked me hers)2, but it's up there in terms of theatre as submission.
I only cried once, and it wasn't where I expected to.
Yeah, I think that's all. Really top-notch show! If you get the chance, definitely take it.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: This is how I saw Hamilton! In an October, KChen emailed me to say "I bought tickets, would you like to pay me back for one of them?" and then I made my way to the city in April and did indeed pay him back and it was a fantastic show.
2: I'm sorry friends, but despite my endlessly TMI nature, some stories really are too personal for me to tell publicly, or largely at all.