Sublimity in print.
- Features
- March 27, 2024
- Visuals by Samuel Mendez II
Theater has been around for thousands of years and its life-changing power has moved and held humans for that long. It’s a special kind of storytelling because it’s never gonna be the same thing twice and it’s inherently communal – the way things are meant to be in this world. Andrew Russell, the Producing Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Intiman Theatre, says that as we experience “wrongness” in real-time, we begin our healing at the same time that it begins for the characters onstage. He calls this a “public moment–” when you are being pulled into the same moment as many others and experiencing it together. The actors essentially hand over these lessons to their audience as if asking us, “What are you going to do with this?”
As someone who has mostly seen theater productions through only a screen, the impact of theater is so great that it still works excellently on me. With an ambiguous regard for the law and a determination to absorb any and all art, I am no longer on the little island of Bohol, seemingly perpetually encased in the four walls of my room. I am transported to Broadway where musicals like Hadestown come to life.
Anaïs Mitchell had poured thirteen years of her life into crafting a story that she felt needed to be sung and heard by many. Thus sprung from there Hadestown, and it went on to win 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical. This musical haunted me for so long when I first watched it, and I continue to be taken back to that space every time I listen to the musical score.
Hadestown brings together the two Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone so seamlessly and into this ambiguous setting of a Great Depression Era/Capitalist Dystopia and somehow, it all just makes absolutely perfect sense. You don’t need a background in Greek mythology to understand the musical, but if you do have the background, you can appreciate more the genius of Mitchell in making two different Greek myths into parallel love stories. Eurydice died from a snake bite and Orpheus loved her so much that he went to the Underworld to get her back. Hades allows this but only if Orpheus doesn’t look back while Eurydice walks behind him on the way to the world above. It’s tragic, because he does look back, and all of his efforts crumbled under the weight of his doubt. As for Persephone, Hades encounters her while she’s picking flowers in a meadow and he carries her away with him into the Underworld. She is offered a pomegranate and the seeds she ate served as the amount of time she would be spending with Hades – half of the year with him and the other half with her mother up in Olympus. This gave rise to the changing of the seasons where the world is thrown into fall and winter when she’s below, and then it comes alive again as spring and summer when she’s above.
Hades and Persephone, image taken from pinterest.ph
Orpheus and Eurydice, image taken from tombishop72.medium.com
From the original myths, the women are there for their lovers to fight to keep, but in the musical, they have more agency. Persephone (played by Amber Gray in the original cast) decides to stay with Hades (Patrick Page) which means she genuinely loves him and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada) willingly goes to the Underworld in hopes of finding a way to survive because the world she lived in made it impossible for her. The two stories are reconstructed in such a way that the characters play off each other so well. Both men are too focused on their work which ultimately ruins their relationships, even though they believe the work they were doing meant creating the ideal world for their respective partners. Hades’s factories and neon lights drive Persephone away and Orpheus’ (played by Reeve Carney) idealism translates as naivety to a hungry girl like Eurydice. The use of Hermes as the narrator and the Fates as the voices of the characters’ doubts also supply the audience with a healthy dose of foreshadowing.
Of course, we can’t talk about a Broadway musical without talking about its technical aspects too. The set seems minimalist at first, which is a plain representation of what the conditions are like for the world above. It has a center part that we eventually see open up and lower down to show the descent into the Underworld but it also later rises and the gods stand on it to show how they stand above the rest. The entire set transforms when Orpheus goes to get Eurydice from Hadestown – the walls open up and the stage becomes wider and there are lamps that drop down and are swung around by the coal miners of Hadestown with smoke effects shrouding them in and out, and in a hauntingly beautiful way, all of it informs the audience that they are in fact, now in the Underworld. The choreography is also extremely precise and keeps you in the same suspense that the characters are in. With Rachel Chavkin as the Director, she never fails to transform a stage and immerse you into the story.
Orpheus descending into Hadestown, image taken from vulture.com
The music is then the best part of it, because well, this is a musical. But it doesn’t focus on catchiness like what we usually find in musicals. There’s also not one song that stands out among the rest. Its music is there to engross you in the story. Hadestown is completely sung through so you can look up the cast recording and get the whole story just from there. But I recommend doing so while reading the lyrics. Mitchell writes Hadestown like it’s an epic and she places so many nuggets of foreshadowing in the lyrics. One of my favorites is when Hermes says in Wait for Me (Reprise) while Orpheus is making his trek to the Underworld:
You got a lonesome road to walk
And it ain’t along the railroad track
And it ain’t along the blacktop tar
You’ve walked a hundred times before
I’ll tell you where the real road lies
Between your ears, behind your eyes
That is the path to Paradise
Likewise, the road to ruin
Finally, the main thesis of Hadestown is this:
It’s a tragedy
It’s a sad song
But we sing it anyway
Why do we do it? Why do we rehash this old, sad tale again and again? This is where Hadestown enforces a meta-quality to it and addresses its audience. It’s a tragedy, but we sing it anyway to see how the world should be despite the way it is. And we as the audience keep coming back to it in hopes that maybe this time, it might turn out good for them.
Unfortunately, witnessing Hadestown or any of the hits of Broadway or West End from where we are right now is impossible. Theatre has always been something seen as associated with the big cities. Do you want to see a production? Go to Manila where musicals such as Hamilton was hosted last year. It is however a lie to say that Cebu does not have a thriving theatre community.
Local groups have been putting on shows, some adaptations, others original productions over at local venues. It is not as grandiose as Hamilton but not all productions need to equal it. It may not meet the standards of Broadway but our own local groups do not lack in quality.
In the current year, Cebuano theatre has once again entered another booming era. A new interest in theatre has begun, attracting a new crowd of fresh audience, especially since the University of Cebu has offered a bachelor’s in performing arts. This wave of interest has allowed theatre groups to rise towards mainstream attention with more and more groups rising and showcasing their own productions, bringing their own talents into the spotlight, and reaching out to a wider audience who otherwise would not have been interested in theatre.
The question now is why Cebuano theatre? What sets it apart?
The Cebuano writers of today have started to break away from the traditional story beats of family drama and infidelity. For those who have already begun to grow tired of these formulaic stories, Cebuano Theatre has you covered as they explore themes and topics that are not normally talked about in our society such as HIV, autism, or even the perspective of outsiders from the community. Cebuano theatre allows for the audience to experience these foreign concepts and get a greater understanding.
Another aspect that sets it apart is the usage of language. What makes the usage of the Cebuano language stand out from other productions is that, unlike English, the Cebuano language captures the raw intensity and emotions within the actors. There is a rawness in the Cebuano language that English cannot truly replicate and that intensity will be felt within the audience since this is also a language that they are familiar with. It creates a connection between the actors and the audience that cannot be replicated in another language.
The Cebuano language is one of passion, and these Cebuano theatre productions perfectly capture that passion.
So, although we are not showing off Hamilton at your local theatre, we do have a collection of local productions to answer that urge of watching a play. At the time of writing, the Panagtipon Theatre Festival at the University of Cebu should be having its third week from April 4 to April 6, and for those who could not catch up with it there is also Disney’s Beauty and the Beast by Broadway Youth Cebu during the end of July or the first week of August. For the Poe-try fans, there is also Nevermore – The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe Cebu coming this August by Vaudeville Theatre co.
Theater may not be something a large part of society enjoys, but it only takes one truly good story to pull you in and then you’re stuck in the grasp of art completely. It’s important we let art do its work on us. Theater is one of the most effective tools to make sense of the world. So let yourself be moved. And when that happens, you decide what you want to do with what you get in the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
part time writer, part time procrastinator, full time in a state of panic