Person

and then UGH okay because lady of the underground i was under the impression that she was interacting with the workers and whatnot like making the cracks in the wall that orpheus was about to break down but there's no one on stage. the only people on stage are the musicians, hermes, and persephone. none of the workers are there. she's singing to herself. do you understand do you get it?? especially with why do we build the wall right before that because I didn't realize persephone was in that song?? and the whole time she looks terrified. she Doesn't want to be here she Doesn't want to engage with this (my mom compared the song to being at a maga rally and she was 100% correct) but she does anyway, perhaps because she's forced to. and the look of heartbreak when eurydice appears; the way eurydice is confused and put off at first, but it doesn't take long for her to learn the words and join in????

eurydice and persephone is a whole other thing because I never realized how much of a relationship they had. like persephone is quick to be friendly with her, and eurydice is enthralled by that attention. but then during chant when persephone is singing about like the earth dying and people starving she's looking at eurydice walking by. she's looking at her and she looks heartbroken, she's reaching out to her but she can't reach her because she's not there. she watches as the fates strip eurydice of everything she has, and then that look of despair changes of one to fear as hades' eyes land on eurydice as he declares he'll find someone else who will be grateful. and I know that like flowers can be like an analogy for sa but I really felt it during that part. not so much in songbird vs rattlesnake? but definitely during the end of chant like AJHVSGDJAS.

It's very good, and was prescient for a lot of the early days of the covid pandemic. I found myself returning to it often in the first couple of years because of how steadfast it was in its hopefulness.

Last year she wrote a novelette, "The Year Without Sunshine," which attacks a similar problem in a similar way; instead of pandemic, this one is about the aftereffects of a distant nuke or a massive volcano explosion (it doesn't say), which has churned a great deal of dust into the air, causing massive damage to society and agriculture. The story covers one neighborhood, pulling together to keep each other alive--not through violence, but through lawn potatoes and message pinboards and bicycle-powered oxygen concentrators.

I got into this the way I usually get into new musicals – listen to the soundtrack a bunch of times before I manage to see a performance. I am so, so, glad they decided to film a theatre performance rather than turning it into a Hollywood musical. This is how all musicals should be turned into films. I was surprised by how small the stage was; it gives an intimacy to the performance. It’s not so much that the fourth wall is broken as that it doesn’t exist at all. Hermes introduces the chorus. The muisicans get shout-outs by name. Most of the cast are narrators – Hermes, the Fates, the chorus, even Orpheus is the narrator of Hades and Persephone’s story.

Eurydice’s actress was the standout to me. How she uses everything, body language and facial expression and tone,to show how conflicted Eurydice’s falling in love with Orpheus is, how she’s torn between doubt and desire to believe. You can find narrative parallels and contrasts between all four of the main characters, but the ones between Eurydice and Hades hit me the most. They’re driven by the desire for security against loss, where Orpheus and Persephone are driven by desire for freedom. The ways she sings the line “wonder how it feels” and the way Hades looks at her – how would it be to own everything, to have no fear of want. And she and Hades are the ones who initially both fear abandonment by their lover the most – Persephone returning to the world, Orpheus becoming absorbed in his music. They both get similar song from the Fates (“what’re you gonna do…?”).

Persephone giving her own bottle to Eurydice and Eurydice ultimately drinking from it (recalling the idea of Persephone becoming trapped in the underworld by consuming the pomegranate seeds; Eurydice is now too consuming the drink of the underworld) also foreshadows her fate – everyone drinks Persephone’s wine but Eurydice getting a shot from her personal stash is more connected.

There’s a lot of ways to symbolically read her acceptance of Hades offer – while it’s definitely got sexual undertones (“there’s a lot that can happen behind closed doors”), there’s also symbolism of suicide (choosing death out of desperation, “I want to lay down forever”) and of depression (lie down, forget about your life, give in to the numbness)

Persephone’s actress was also fantastic – dancing and singing and acting for practically the whole show while conveying being anywhere from tipsy to hammered must be phenomenally difficult, and she did it so well. All her interactions with Hades, the way she reacts with a physical, even visceral aversion to him for most of the movie and the shift to reconciliation at the end, was incredibly well done, as was the despair and alienation she displays in the underworld.

I really enjoyed Hades. He recalled Christopher Lee in the original Dracula movie so much it had to be intentional, it was a great look. His voice is so low! All his songs were excellent, but the acting that really jumped out at me was the way he’s gradually affected by Orpheus’ song and goes from this hard antogonistic presence to practically tearing up, and the way his initial joining into the song, the “la” notes, is practically toneless, like he’s forgotten how to sing it but is trying again. And the armbands he wears were a great touch, like Hades himself is also bound by this industrial prison he’s created.

If there’s a weak link in the main cast it’s Orpheus, not that he’s bad but he’s a normal level of good while the other three and Hermes are all exceptional.

i feel like the problem with this question is best illustrated by a conversation i had with a friend a while back, where i said something like, "i feel very safe with you because you don't do subtle hints and you are always very straight-up with me about what you are thinking and feeling."

Scapegoat.