Review: Heralded ‘Hadestown’ counters seductive undertow

When a Broadway show wins eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, this region can rest assured a North American tour will include Chicago. When that show is “Hadestown,” you need to pull out all the stops to get a ticket, especially when the limited engagement at the Loop’s CIBC Theatre has a final performance as soon as Sunday, March 13. The initial song in the show may be called “Road to Hell,” but trust me – it’s a Hades of a good time.

Anaïs Mitchell, who wrote the music, lyrics and book of “Hadestown” – her first musical – uses characters from Greek mythology to tell two intersecting love stories. You don’t need to know the Greek backstory, though, and the setting definitely isn’t ancient Athens. As you can tell when you walk into the theater and see the Tony Award-winning scenic design by Rachel Hauck, we’re in a New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band-style club with music stands and instruments at the ready on each side.

As we learn from storyteller Hermes (Levi Kreis), our first tale of love involves Orpheus (Nicholas Barasch), a poor but talented singer who clears tables at the club while he tries to finish composing an epic song. Into the club during this time of famine and rough weather comes the woman of his dreams, Eurydice (Morgan Siobhan Green), who’s initially resistant to his charms (“A singer! Is that what you are?” “Well, I also play the lyre.” “Oh, a liar! And a player, too? I’ve met too many men like you.”). While the two do fall in love, Eurydice’s concerns over poverty and hunger don’t go away despite assurances by Orpheus that when he’s finished with his composition, that song will solve everything (for example, in “Wedding Song,” he tells her, “Lover, when I sing my song, all the trees are gonna sing along and bend their branches down to me to lay their fruit around my feet”).

The other love story involves two gods who couldn’t be more different from each other. Persephone (Kimberly Marable) is the sparkling goddess of the seasons who brings the joy of spring and summer but who returns to the Underworld for half of the year (the fall and winter seasons) to be with her not-at-all better half: Hades (Kevyn Morrow), the god of the dead and ruler of the Underworld. When Persephone is “up on top,” though, she’s ready to party (“Anybody want a drink?”), and her positive outlook is welcomed by Orpheus: “Let the world we dream about be the one we live in now!”

When a starving Eurydice can’t be as optimistic about her future, she is lured to the Underworld where she may have to labor constantly but where she won’t go hungry. Her absence is eventually noticed by the epic song-focused Orpheus, who goes on a long journey to save Eurydice. Will their love survive? Will one or both of them need to remain in the Underworld? Will Hades and Persephone overcome their differences to fall in love with each other again? The audience – when it wasn’t enthusiastically applauding after each song – was spellbound.

And that includes me upon seeing the musical now for the first time. There are a lot of reasons, including:

• Well-sung, well-acted, emotion-filled performances from all the leads (Kreis, Barasch, Green, Marable and Morrow), as well as the Fates (Belén Moyano, Bex Odorisio and Shea Renne), who comment on situations and also persuade characters to take actions that may not be in their best interests (for example, “Help yourself, to hell with the rest – even the one who loves you best”).
• Fantastic lighting design that deservedly won a Tony for Bradley King, with scenes varying from almost entire darkness to the shockingly harsh bright lights Hades can summon up in the Underworld.
• Songs that range from celebratory (“Livin’ It Up on Top”) to dangerously seductive (Morrow’s deep voice on “Hey, Little Songbird”) to suspenseful (“Doubt Comes In”) and everything in between. There’s a tremendous variety.
• An overall theme of finding a way to make your world – and the world at large – better.

Under the direction of show co-developer Rachel Chavkin, “Hadestown” is a wonderfully moving experience; catch it before it moves on.

[COVID-19 update: Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test must be shown along with photo ID. No home tests are accepted. Audience members are required to be masked.]

• Paul Lockwood is an enthusiastic singer, local theater actor, Grace Lutheran Church (Woodstock) and Toastmasters member, occasional theater reviewer, columnist, and past president of TownSquare Players. He’s lived in Woodstock for more than 21 years.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Hadestown”

WHERE: CIBC Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., Chicago

WHEN: Performances through March 13

INFORMATION: www.BroadwayInChicago.com