‘Hadestown’ Tour (Broadway Dallas) @ The Music Hall at Fair Park

Photos by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

—Jan Farrington

It’s an old song
It’s an old tale from way back when
It’s an old song
But we’re gonna sing it again…and again and again

You won’t easily forget Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell’s primal, mythic, romantic, and music-filled remix of one of humankind’s oldest stories—the ancient Greek legend about Orpheus the musician, and the girl Eurydice “who makes me wanna sing.” There’s a second love story too—the one about Hades, the king of the Underworld, and his wife Persephone, who leaves him for six months each year to bring the spring and summer (and crops!) to us on Earth…and then returns to Hell.

Mitchell, who wrote the music, lyrics, and book of the musical (her lyrics are worth reading all by themselves, like a book of poetry), developed and workshopped the show from 2006 right through to its Broadway premiere in 2019. (Hadestown won eight Tony Awards that season.) The music is a heady blend of brassy New Orleans jazz and blues, with a haunting swerve into Appalachian folk ballads—and in the touring version onstage in Dallas this week (presented by Broadway Dallas at The Music Hall at Fair Park), good voices and a terrific onstage band do a fine bit of storytelling.

The touring company is directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant, with lighting by Aja Jackson, and choreography by T. Oliver Reid (based on the Broadway originals by Rachel Chavkin, Bradley King, and David Neuman.) The set (designed by David L. Arsenault based on Rachel Hauck’s B’way original) is backed by a heavy wall of doors and panels that look as ancient as the story itsself. The layered design organically pushes the performers up front, close to the audience, backed by “the Wall” and two platforms for groups of onstage musicians.

As my companion noted at the intermission, the lighting is astonishing—helping to tell the story by pulling our attention to the right spot or character at the perfect moment. Swinging industrial lights shine down on the characters, and sometimes at us. A row of stage footlights shoot white light up at the actors (lending them a haunted aura)—and the lights shift to brooding, smoky tones as we climb “Way down, Hadestown / Way down under the ground.”

Megan Colton is a tough and tender Eurydice, a “hungry young girl” looking for work, food, safety. And though her sudden meeting with Orpheus (Ricky Cardenas subbed for Bryan Munar at the performance I saw) is a thunderbolt, she’s not sure his songs will give her the things she wants. Hades puts it bluntly:

“Hey, little songbird, let me guess:
He’s some kind of poet and he’s penniless?”

Hades is played by Nikolaus Colón, whose deep bass tones would put Johnny Cash to shame. He has an evil—yet slightly amused—gleam in his eye, and his songs are vocal highlights: “Hey Little Songbird” as he puts the moves on Eurydice; “Why We Build The Wall,” sung with the ensemble as a dark anthem of how unending work makes us “free” (from the “enemy,’ aka the poor—who “want what we have got”).

Compared to Hades, it’s easy to love Persephone, who “brings a suitcase full of sunshine” wherever she travels. Played by South African-born singer/actor Namisa Mdlalose Bizana, Persephone is feisty, funny, engaging, and (literally) a force of nature. To stand up to Hades, she needs to be all that and more. But even for Persephone, immortal existence can get tough. In “Our Lady of the Underground,” she’s drunk and disorderly in a speakeasy she runs behind Hades’ back—using black humor and music to lighten the mood. The god Hermes (smooth, shiny Jaylon C. Crump) is a pal of Persephone (who, in the Greek myths, “conducts” souls to the Underworld). They must see each other a lot on her many trips on the “railroad line” between Earth and Hell.

Two groupings of actors are especially important to making Hadestown a gripping experience. The Workers Chorus, in overalls and headgear (Randy Cain, Miracle Myles, Kaitlyn O’Leary, Mikaela Rada, and Joe Rumi), combines song and physical action in a compelling style drawn from Black work chants. And the three Fates (Katelyn Crall, Miriam Navarrete, and Alli Sutton) who measure out the years of human lives (and how much we’ll suffer) are portrayed as fierce women who don’t shy away from telling the hard truth. “It ain’t, it ain’t, it ain’t no use,” they sing to Orpheus, who’s trying to rescue Eurydice, trapped in Hades’ kingdom. “Why break a sweat?…Nothing changes.”

The Fates dance with Hermes and swing with the band—and seem jazzed to deliver the bad news…forever. Kudos again to the small orchestra led by Cole P. Abod, fine musicians all. The group’s showiest player is trombonist Haik Demirchian, who throws his whole body into the music.

There's something lingering, satisfying, truly bedrock about a musical that reaches back—I mean way back—to the OG stories of Greek mythology. To the tales we told ourselves at the beginning of time, to explain the way the world is (the moon, the seasons, the tides). Why some things stay the same year after year—and others always change, and mostly to our sorrow: young turns to old, life to death, love to loss. But that old song, we keep singing it, in spite of everything.

Again and again and again.

WHEN: February 25-March 2, 2025
WHERE: The Music Hall at Fair Park, Dallas
WEB: broadwaydallas.org