Graser's Blog

something i’ve also come to understand after seeing the proshot is that persephone was not only scared for eurydice, but scared for herself. there were so many times she almost reached for eurydice or orpheus but stopped herself out of fear. so many times you could see her almost say something but stop herself before she could. and in the end, when she finally did stand up for her beliefs and for orpheus and eurydice, it didn’t fix things. it fell apart again. and she will do this again and again because they will sing it again and again.

Hadestown is not subtle in how it shows the power of revolutionaries, of love and hope and human compassion over that of the capitalist cycle of abuse. WRoC is talking about Orpheus. But it is also talking about every person with that revolutionary spirit.

Orpheus is all of us, and every person who stands against exploitation, is Orpheus. The theme is there, but it’s especially strong in Is It True, where he stands against the Fates themselves to challenge the world, only bolstered by the normal people that stood up and heard his words and showed him the power of words.

When Persephone asks where Orpheus is now, it is not entirely that she wonders where the man himself is, but also that she is pouring a drop to every person who holds his legacy and fights for the cause.

Then they praise the birds who sing in the night and the flowers that bloom in snow. A metaphor for those people who fight to make beauty in inhospitable places, who strive for good in darkness.

“To Orpheus, and all of us”

To Orpheus, to those who hold his spirit, to those who lead revolutions, and to those who follow him. The cycle of Orpheus and Eurydice is a love song. It is a tragedy. And yet we all know that one day. one time. they will make it out together. It is on that day, when an Orpheus finally manages to bring their Eurydice back, that the revolution succeeds, and the Shades get to follow their path out of Hades. And the mortals get to live free from the poverty and despair of their oppression.

We sing the song even though it is sad, because we know that spring will come and the world will go back in tune once they make it out together. And Hades can take the seasons, the food from our mouths, the fire from our stoves, every ounce of gold from the rivers, but what he cannot take, nor any other like him, is our songs and the cries of an impassioned heart. And may those songs inspire a thousand Orpheus’ to journey to defeat Hades. Because eventually one will win. It only takes one.

amber gray's expressions just wow. she is so expressive and such a phenomenal actress

the way the fates appeared behind orpheus during wait for me

how every time during group numbers the camera focused on a certain person you could hear their vocals more clearly than everyone else

all of the fates

wait for me reprise in 4k with peak sound holy shit eva noblezada i love you so much

the cracking noises during wait for me when the walls opened up

the shots from above/below the stage

how during doubt comes in all the shots were primarily close ups of orpheus so it was hard to tell where eurydice was

one of the people in my theater shouting "NO" when orpheus turned around

literally so many more things i could talk about this proshot for ages

I used to work at a TV station in Ohio. On weekends, we only had an 11pm news broadcast. Not much happened on weekends, ya know? I worked Monday-Friday 9-5, but someone on the weekend shift quit, so I also had to come in at 9pm on Sat/Sun to work the 11pm news. It was brutal. I worked seven days a week, even if two of them were ~3hrs.

This was a particularly bad winter. One Saturday, we had a level 2 snow emergency: That means you should only travel if you absolutely must. Like, it's not uncommon for cops to pull you over in level 2 emergencies to ask where you're going and why. It is genuinely dangerous to drive in that much snow.

I told my boss as much, how I almost crashed on the way home at 12:30am after a news broadcast. I told him I would need to call off if there were a snow emergency again during a night snow.

He told me, point blank, "If you ever call me about the goddamn snow, I will take it as a call of resignation."

And that was that! The very next Saturday, snow fell again. It was a level 2, but would become level 3 by sunup. Level 3 means driving is literally illegal except for ambulances and snow plows. I stared out the window, watching the snow, and I had to make a choice.

"Will I die for this? Will I kill myself to keep this job?" I made $11/hr.

The beauty of it is that you could place that exact same dialogue into any time and place in human history and it would make just as much sense, you could have it as a conversation between sailors in a 1600s ship, a group of bronze-age warriors cleaning their weapons, stone age hunters walking home from a hunt, or a bunch of 21st century redditors on the internet, and it would hit just as splendidly.

There was this conversation about if you could have sex with any specific person from any time through human history, which one would you choose? Famous legendary lovers were brought up, queens, emperors and such were popular, might as well fuck Rasputin just to see what the hype was all about, the kind of answers one would expect.

Then some guy said he would choose his own late wife. He went on to talk about how brutal it is, that you might find the love of your life, but there's no promise that this life couldn't be suddenly cut short. That his body aches for hers and how there isn't much he wouldn't do for one more opportunity to make love to her one last time.

Now, I'd like you to imagine a pause in the conversation. A solemn, contemplative moment of silence, with several of the people present nodding in agreement that this is indeed the finest answer - it wasn't a competition, but there's no doing better than that.

And then someone breaks this solemn silence and says:

(this is a hypothetical you, you're not me)

...and right there from the grid...

...fate's accidentally bequeathed a new a meme format.