Hadestown London Reviews Round-up

"Magical folk opera that touches the heart"

"The underworld has never sounded so funky. At a time when jukebox musicals seem to be everywhere, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell’s captivating folk opera, inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, is a reminder of what musical theatre can achieve when it sets its sights beyond the lowest common denominator."

"Rachel Chavkin’s magical production"

"The show is proof, too, that you don’t need a full-size pit orchestra to make a glorious noise. Tarek Merchant’s seven-piece band, sitting amid the actors, generates a salty melange of New Orleans jazz, blues and gospel."

"Gloria Onitiri is a thunderous, sexy Persephone."

"Could the evening be trimmed by 15 minutes or so? Probably. With so many exceptional voices whirling around them, Orpheus and Eurydice risk becoming supporting players at times, but their final, ill-starred journey still touches the heart. Standing ovations have become a nightly ritual in the West End. Just for a change, this one didn’t quite seem adequate."

"I was bewitched by this achingly beautiful and boldy original musical"

"Hadestown is beautiful, bold and bewitchingly brilliant. We need more shows like this, please."

"On paper, Hadestown really shouldn't work. A broodingly melancholy musical based on Greek myth via modern industrial and socioeconomic concerns, with a fusion steampunk and New Orleans setting, a meandering plot and distinct lack of catchy show tunes? And yet... The packed crowd exuberantly cheered as each character came on, and their delirious delight sustained through to the thunderous curtain call. At first, I didn't quite get it, and then somewhere along the way I was drawn in, initially intrigued, gradually bewitched and then profoundly moved. As if dunked in the river Styx, the real world outside slowly faded away."

"Yes, the book is rather thin, a couple of performances uneven, yes, the pacing is (deliberately) languorous and yes, you actually have to put some effort in. But this show's story deserves to be told and sung to rapturous ovations every night. Now that's an ending I can root for."

"Thrilling songs from an American underworld"

"Anaïs Mitchell’s musical melds two classical myths, folk and jazz with tremendous soul and offbeat spirit"

"Extraordinarily, it is not just a well-honed musical machine but retains a tremendous soul and offbeat spirit."

"It takes a while for the dark magic to kick in. As the narrator, Hermes, Melanie La Barrie is full of swagger and has a stupendous voice yet the story is formless, with one song after another and little forward momentum. The alchemy is created quietly and somewhere in the first act you find yourself hooked. Rachel Chavkin’s production takes on a fabulous sense of motion from here on but there is stillness, too, which allows the emotions around the central, complicated romances to rise."

"There is no weak link in the cast, who have spine-tingling voices that become thunderous in chorus. As Hades, Zachary James sounds like a mix between Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen, hitting staggering low notes"

"Every scene becomes a set piece: big, beautiful and emotionally blasting. It is ultimately not about good over evil, tragedy v happy endings or the artist v the work machine of the underworld, but the value of telling stories, in spite of knowing their ending. This is one of the best West End musicals around."

"Anaïs Mitchell’s infernally good musical finally takes up its rightful space in the West End"

"... in short thanks to what I can only describe as THEATRE MAGIC, ‘Hadestown’ is now a full-blown musical directed by the visionary Rachel Chavkin, its success as a show vastly outstripping that of the record."

"Now in a normcore West End theatre, its otherness feels considerably more pronounced than it did at the NT. The howling voodoo brass that accompanies opener ‘Road to Hell’ is like nothing else in Theatreland."

"And the staging is an improvement on its NT incarnation: David Neumann’s pneumatic choreography feels more potent, the revolve is brilliantly deployed to create a constant sense of movement, and the Lyric Theatre’s relatively small stage fosters a sense of intimacy lacking at the NT’s yawning Olivier."

"It’s a musical of beautiful texture and tone - there is something thrilling about the contrast between rising star Hodgett Young’s flat, cynical vowels - a real switch from her ingénue turn in last year’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ - and ‘Wheel of Time’ man Finn’s ethereal falsetto. It doesn’t hurt that Mitchell has penned some flat-out brilliant songs"

"A gloriously improbable triumph."

"Gorgeously lush musical Hadestown arrives in London’s West End"

"Anaïs Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin’s retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice lights up the Lyric Theatre"

"Retelling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice can’t be about delivering a happy ending. But here, it’s about the biting point between the myth and now: the lens through which we see this ancient tale. It’s about storytelling and what it means to us — why we sing old songs again and again, no matter how sad."

"The whole thing has an improvised feel, while the aesthetic blends Depression-era America with the modern day."

"The backdrop also allows for Mitchell’s rich mix of folk, blues and vintage, New Orleans-style jazz to flourish, played gloriously by a superb seven-piece band. The songs carry the narrative, which is limiting: the show does become episodic. But that barely matters when the music is so infectious"

"A largely new cast for this West End production brings fresh energy and insight. Gloria Onitiri’s Persephone is fabulous, lighting up the stage whenever she enters, but also bringing an edge of despair"

"Unlike any musical I have seen before"

"Lay aside all your preconceptions about Greek myth and musical theatre and allow yourself to be wooed"

"Hadestown is quite unlike any musical I have seen before – and it is all the better for that. Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin have worked closely and rigorously together over many years and multiple iterations of the show to create a languid and sinuous production"

"The story is, admittedly, spread very thinly, patches of the second half feel slightly threadbare and style triumphs over substance – but what style Chavkin’s production displays. Mitchell’s sweeping music, with shifting inflections of folk and New Orleans jazz, is captivating"

"Lay aside all unhelpful preconceptions of Greek myth and musical theatre and allow yourself to be wooed by the hazy, dazy atmosphere of this splendidly sultry show."

"... Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin have twisted it again, bringing an even sharper, more sophisticated and definitely more English (and Irish) version to the West End."

"On paper it always feels as if it shouldn’t work. Yet on stage Hadestown is the most exhilarating ride. That band, with its bluesy trombone and folksy guitar is consistently thrilling, the songs are vibrant and smart, the sung-through text is compelling."

"Everything in Hadestown makes you long for a happy ending, and although the conclusion is deeply moving and highly sophisticated, it doesn’t quite provide the desired emotional release."

"Chavkin’s direction is direct and impassioned."

"The band is superb, and the performances across the board pack an extraordinary punch. I particularly loved Gloria Onitiri’s Persephone"

"It’s a terrific musical and a sensational evening but in the end, for me, the material just doesn’t quite coalesce into the ending I long for."

"This Tony Winner offers moments of theatrical heaven – and purgatory"

"This musical spin on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has its flaws, but it's a show that's imbued with passion and great performances"

"... that palpable self-belief is the reason the evening works, and may well hold its own amid steep competition. The show is imbued with a passionate sense that here is a tale worth hearing and that something happens in the act of shared story-telling that’s akin to Orpheus’ fabled way with a lyre: everyone in earshot gets spellbound."

"Though there’s an interval, effectively Hadestown is one unwavering threnody, albeit varied with delectable jazz, folk and gospel, for a doomed couple who, for all their antiquity, have a recognisable modernity."

"Politically it’s a bit one-note, the anti-capitalist drum beaten with no great subtlety in Hades’ protectionist anthem The Wall. But that’s offset by the rich attention to detail in the costuming, choreography, lighting and ensemble flamboyance"

"Yes, it can feel like one damned song after another. But it washes over you like a steam bath."

"Electrifying energy and knockout vocals"

"Anaïs Mitchell’s mythological musical is an intermittently stunning trip down a road to nowhere"

"Along the way, the show has accumulated an ardent fan base, who are bound to greet its West End arrival with avid delight. An uneven, unsatisfying creation, it is light on plot, heavy on pretentious portent – yet it’s fitfully seductive, with Mitchell’s New Orleans jazz-inflected score and Rachel Chavkin’s fever dream of a production both oozing spicy flavour. And the electrifying energy and knockout vocals of the cast come close to blasting away objections."

"Without a stronger narrative, it’s a show that only takes us, like the characters on Hauck’s cunningly deployed revolve, around in circles; but the journey is sometimes stunning."

"The catchy score is let down by a meandering, confusing show"

"It’s hard to see why this musical by folk singer Anaïs Mitchell inspires such devotion among musical theatre audiences"

"The writer-composer’s score is catchy and eclectic but often bombastic, her lyrics pretentious or nonsensical. The book turns a 20-minute story into a meandering, confused two hours, that somehow anticipated Donald Trump’s political rise 10 years before it happened."

"Director Rachel Chavkin... invests this West End production with po-faced solemnity."

"Admirably and successfully, Chavkin casts relative newcomers as the romantic leads. Dónal Finn has an almost ecstatic falsetto as Orpheus, the ‘poor boy’ with a musical gift. Grace Hodgett Young, fresh from her arresting professional debut in Sunset Boulevard, is robust and gutsy as northern-accented runaway Eurydice."

"... the endless reprises start to drag and, oh dear, the words within and in between the songs can be dire."

"One HELL of a letdown"

"... however many Tony Awards it received in New York (eight, as it happens), and however many Oliviers it's going to pick up in London, I can't look back on this show with a whole lot of love."

"There are strong numbers. The show's big anthem Wait For Me bottles some urgency. Road To Hell is freighted with doom, and one of Orpheus's numbers, If It's True, rolls to an arrestingly sad, slow drum. But too many tunes in between just mooch about."

"The most notable tenant down under is Zachary James's Hades: a six-foot-six redwood of a bass with throbbing nether notes.
But he's got his hands full with his beloved Persephone (Gloria Onitiri), the Greek goddess of spring and nature, who bubbles with histrionic torment and ululations."

"... Rachel Chaykin's production is relentlessly declamatory, while David Neumann's choreography is a bovine trudge of stomping, knee jerks and shoulder shuffles. Hadestown certainly has an enviable track record. But in case you couldn't tell, it was not for me."