But, what would I do?

this is a two-plus hour play, with twenty minutes worth of material in it, from a five minute myth, and it relies mostly on artful repetition to stretch it long enough to warrant having an intermission, often taking three songs to hit the same plot beat that one song accomplished in the concept album

and in the process of stretching these moments, a lot of metaphor and imagery was lost, to the detriment of the songs. this places a greater burden on the visuals and cast to emotionally carry those moments, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! theatre is a largely visual medium and it’s okay for it to be different from an audio medium. but the flatter and more general the lyrics become, the harder the cast has to work to sell the emotion, and within a given cast, not every actor succeeds at selling it, tbh

so it’s a real loss to go from “Epic, Pt. 2” (concept album) and “Epic III” (2017 live):

Heavy and hard is the heart of the king King of iron, king of steel The heart of the king loves everything Like the hammer loves the nail

But even that hardest of hearts unhardened Suddenly, when he saw her there Persephone in her mother’s garden Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair The smell of the flowers she held in her hand And the pollen that fell from her fingertips And suddenly Hades was only a man With a taste of nectar upon his lips, singing: La la la la la la la…

to (Broadway):

King of shadows King of shades Hades was king of the Underworld

But he fell in love with a beautiful lady Who walked up above In her mother's green field He fell in love with Persephone Who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun And I know how it was because He was like me A man in love with a woman Singing la-la-la-la-la-la-la

the former has metaphor, concrete image, and sense memory that puts Hades, and us, back in the moment when he first met Persephone. the latter is narration

or from (2017):

Where is the treasure inside your chest? Where is your pleasure? Where is your youth? Where is the man with his hat in his hands? Who stands in the garden with nothing to lose, singing: La la la la la la la…

to (Broadway):

Where is the treasure inside of your chest? Where is your pleasure? Where is your youth? Where is the man with his arms outstretched? To the woman he loves With nothing to lose Singing la-la-la-la-la-la-la

the former gives us a very specific and lovely image of Hades while the latter becomes more general and, frankly, bland

we lose even more from "Chant II" as it was in 2017:

When I was a young girl like you Sister, I was hungry too Hungry for the underworld When I was a young girl Now you know how it tastes The fruit of Mr. Hades’ ways Sister, it’s a bitter wine-- Spit it out while you still have time Take it from a woman of my age Love is not a gilded cage All the wealth within these walls Will never buy the thing called love Love was when he came to me Begging on his bended knees To please have pity on his heart And let him lay me in the dirt... I felt his arms around me then We didn’t need a wedding bed Dark seeds scattered on the ground The wild birds were flying around That’s when I became his wife But that was in another life That was in another world When I was a young girl!

to the Broadway version, in which Persephone doesn't sing at all. which is an especially bonkers choice because that makes the song shorter, and they were already struggling to end up with a full length play

losing this verse also shifts the focus more onto Hades's conflict with Orpheus. in fact, without this verse, the last time Persephone expresses an opinion is in "How Long?", and the last time she sings about anything at all that's not Orpheus is in "Our Lady of the Underground". the lost verse in "Chant II" not only offers vivid imagery (kind of an understatement, god damn), but it was also the longest moment of interiority for Persephone in the entire second act

and for a retelling that was groundbreaking because it gave agency to its female lead, it's depressing as hell to see both female characters sidelined so thoroughly for the latter half of the play. that could have been mitigated somewhat if they kept the part where they, you know, talk to each other

I don't know which Broadway producer told Anaïs Mitchell she couldn't keep a verse about backyard sex, but I'd like to find out so I can push them down the elevator in the middle of the stage. what we know of Hades and Persephone's relationship in the current version of the play is sanitized and, once they reconcile, sweet. in the 2017 version, Hades and Persephone fucked