The Broadway show modernizes and intertwines two Greek myths: That of Orpheus and Eurydice with King Hades and Queen Persephone. When King Hades, ruler of the dead, keeps his wife Persephone locked up in his kingdom, it plunges the world into eternal winter. But when a young poor songwriter, Orpheus, loses his lady love, Eurydice, to Hades’ kingdom, he must brave the land of the dead to bring her back.
It’s no wonder why “Hadestown” did so well on Broadway — and continues to do so in theaters. It’s a brilliant musical on many levels. The songs are catchy and infectious. Whether it’s the upbeat showstoppers like “Livin’ it Up on Top,” songs of young love like “Wait for Me” or terror like “Way Down Hadestown.”
The show distills the things that make the original myths eternally powerful: Young love lost, old love regained. And it deftly translates them in a way that modern audiences can grapple with as if it were written for them. Transposing the story into a post-apocalyptic America with hell portrayed as an eternal sweatshop keeps the story feeling like an old myth, but closer to us.
This modernization highlights one of the reasons why modern people sometimes find more resonance in Greek mythology than Christianity. In Christianity, the highest authority is always right and always loving. In Greek mythology, the highest authorities are mean, selfish, cruel and chaotic.
That resembles how the average person experiences the authority figures over them today, whether that’s the church, media, parents or government. By associating death with dehumanizing work, particularly as institutional trust remains at historic lows, Greek gods better personify the way modern people feel about their lives being run by forces beyond their control. Historian Tom Holland described how ancient peoples saw their gods as very similar to how modern people talk about the “Invisible Hand of the Market”: An amoral force that runs your life whether you want it to or not.
The modernization also helps the show and lyrics gesture at the fact that its use of the Greek gods isn’t a pre-Christian interpretation of our reality, but a post-Christian one. The song “When the Chips are Down” contains this ditty:
Now that the chips are down
And the first shall be first
And the last shall be last
Cast your eyes to heaven
You’ll get a knife in the back
This is an explicit allusion to Jesus’ famous phrase “the last shall be first, and the first last”. In his day, this was obviously taken as a subversive phrase, that the kingdom he was building was going to turn the dominant value systems of the day upside down.
Now, after 2000 years of this phrase being the dominant culture’s heavenly ideal, “Hadestown” subverts this subversion. It argues that this vision is an idealized view for those with the luxury of casting their “eyes to heaven” rather than people who exist in the real world. Those who exist in the real world, “when the chips are down,” unfortunately, “get a knife in the back.”
The show finds its own way to encourage fighting back against the dominant ruling powers of the day as Jesus did in His. Orpheus shows skepticism toward those who claim to be an absolute authority. He then encourages the other workers to rebel in a revolution.
Since he can’t appeal to a power higher than nature, the best he can come up with is inspiring this cruel ruling power, Hades, to reconcile with another natural ruling power, Persephone. Hades represents death and human ingenuity, while Persephone represents nature.
Neuroscientist and philosopher Ian McGilchrist has argued in his work that humans can’t just look at life in pieces, but have to understand the “whole.” Human beings need stories and to create meaning. For humans, the meaning and purpose of the universe have to be personified in some ways. You can personify it as an all-good, all-powerful king ruling over what he’s made. Or you can personify it as multiple gods fighting for dominance.
But it’s worthwhile remembering which of these worldviews gave us the closest thing to the kind of civilization “Hadestown” seems to want. It wasn’t the pagans who redefined compassion to mean care for the vulnerable; as Holland notes, it was Christianity. Likewise, it was Christianity that killed the gods of nature so we could steward them with science and industry, give us modern medicine, and reduce poverty.
Pagans and Christians alike long for an Orpheus who can sing a song that brings Hades and Persephone back together and rescue Eurydice from the underworld. But Christians know that song already exists. And if we want our lives and world restored, we don’t have to look to a “sad song” or a fantasy future. But to the happy song of a real past and present.
“Hadestown: The Musical” is now on Broadway and in theaters nationwide.
