AufCat

So the hadestown proshot came out today, and I did go see it, but I need to preface my experience first

So I've been a fan of Anais Mitchell since 2012, back when her song "of a Friday night" was the weather on episode 12 of welcome to night vale.

I fell so hard in love with her music I tracked down every album she'd ever made at the time, including her first self titled album that doesn't seem to be anywhere on the Internet to listen to now outside of one solid YouTube video (but that's a rant for another time). And that included hadestown. I loved the idea that an album could be a whole contained story without it actually having come from a musical first. That shit rewired my little 20 year old brain.

Fast forward to 2016 when the musical first came out, and it exploded into popularity. Suddenly everyone knew it. But my brain went into maximum overdrive hipster mode, and I was all, oh my gosh, do any of you even know the original album??? Did any of you know how amazing it was before it was a play? None of you would have any idea if it weren't for the play. And so on and so on (internally of course, I'm bad with any kind of confrontation, I'm not gonna say that to people's face 😅)

And I had kind of vowed to myself to never engage with the musical because I knew it wouldn't be the same as my beloved original album, and all the big productions were in places I'd never be able to go to see it anyway, so whatever right? Never even listened to the musical soundtrack.

Then this year. The show The Pitt is in high popularity. Someone uploads a clip of Isa Briones singing flowers in a production of hadestown. And it's heartbreaking and beautiful and I watch it over and over and over. But I still don't engage with anything beyond that one clip, cuz even though there have been more widespread productions now, I'm still not in a position to go see one.

And then they drop the trailer for the theatrical release of the proshot. Showing in theaters everywhere for 5 days only. And now. Now I let myself actually want to see it. Drop the hipster pretense of 'I liked it first so I'm not gonna like the new thing'. This has been one of my favorite albums for the last 14 years, how could I not want to see it? I just didn't want to experience it without fully experiencing it you know? And when I didn't think I could actually do that I just pretended it was something I didn't even want.

So now I can honestly say, that was my first time experiencing the musical. And I had a great time. Some songs were in different orders, or broken up into other areas of the play, and new songs that weren't in the original album, or lyrics changed a bit. I knew going in it wouldn't be anywhere near a one to one, but overall it's still incredibly done. And the stage choreography, set design, lighting effects. The mother fucking spinning segments in the stage??? That shit hit so hard I honestly cannot even describe. And Patrick Page as Hades? Good God how did they know my type? 👀

I only had like, one complaint. I knew there would be lyric changes and things would be different. But the changes to "if it's true"? I cannot comprehend. The musical version of the song is fine, it's good. But it's almost completely different from the original. And I felt so robbed not getting to hear and see Orpheus sing the lines:

"If it's true what they say

If my love is gone for good

They can take this heart away

They can take this flesh and blood

Take my mouth that kissed her mouth

Take my tongue that sung her praise

Take my arms that used to reach out

In the dark where she lay

If it's true what they say

I'll be on my way

If it's true what they say

If there's nothing to be done

If there's no part to be played

If there's no song to be sung

Take this voice, take these hands

I can't use them anyway

Take this music and the memory

Of the muse from which it came"

Like seriously, those lines are so raw, just the sheer, if I can't get her back then you can take away all the parts that are left of me because without her they don't matter.

And I do also really like the original version of epic pt 2 better, but musical version fit better in the format.

I swear every attractive person vaguely in my age range and of an ambiguous orientation was at my store today and I'm sweating cuz the ac is out in part of the building, I've been doing side quests like I'm level grinding, and I'm a day past my usual hair wash day 😭