On the road to hell, there was a railroad line, and it is along these tracks that the musical Hadestown unfolds one of humanity’s oldest tales: the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Created by singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, the musical employs an ancient tragedy to mirror the socioeconomic, environmental, and political crises of the contemporary world, all while draped in the raw aesthetic of the Jazz Age and the Great Depression. But what makes a Greek tragedy so relevant today?
The Aesthetic of the Great Depression and Jazz Age
The visual and auditory atmosphere of Hadestown is deeply rooted in the American dust bowl and depression-era folk, blues and New Orleans jazz. By setting an ancient myth against the backdrop of the 1930s economic collapse, Mitchell transforms a timeless story into an intimate chronicle of human endurance under industrial hardship.
The brassy, soulful orchestrations evoke speakeasies and roadside taverns, framing the underworld not as a fantasy realm of demons, but as a gritty, smoke-billowing company town born out of hyper-capitalism.
Differences between the myth and the adaptation
Unlike the version told in the classical mythology, Eurydice (Eva Noblezada) does not descend to the underworld after a snakebite on her wedding day. Instead, she chooses to go to “Hadestown”, the name given to the underworld in the musical, driven by hunger, cold, and financial desperation.
Hades (Patrick Page), reimagined here as an industrial tycoon, offers a pact: security, food, and shelter in exchange for labor in his subterranean factory.
The dynamic between Eurydice and Hades mirrors the relationship between worker and employer. It serves as a metaphor for the precarious nature of modern labor and contemporary financial hardship — a state where the basic need for survival compels individuals to surrender their autonomy, and often their dignity as well.
Climate crisis
In the musical, the troubled relationship between Hades and Persephone (Amber Gray) dictates the changing of the seasons. Hades’s jealousy and his obsession with expanding his industrial empire extend to Persephone, triggering a collapse in the climate in the world of the living, resulting in harsh, prolonged winters, unpredictable droughts, and widespread resources shortages.
Hadestown translates climate change concepts into the intimate language of emotional breakdown and greed, demonstrating how the unregulated exploitation of natural resources by powerful entities directly devastates vulnerable populations on the surface.
Political Paranoia and Isolation
The musical’s Act I finale, “Why We Build the Wall“, stands out as a chilling piece of political commentary. Written by Mitchell in the mid-2000s, years before debates over physical border walls dominated global headlines, the anthem rings out like a dark prophecy of modern demagoguery and xenophobia.
In the song, Hades leads a call-and-response chant with his dehumanized workforce, convincing them that the wall is necessary to protect what they have and keep out those who have nothing. For the workers, it represents a safeguard for the labor that spares them from abject misery.
The song explores a mindset rooted in fear; Mitchell uses this as a metaphor to illustrate how political and financial elites leverage artificial scarcity and isolationism to turn working people against one another, ensuring they remain docile, divided, and dependent on the establishment.
Art and Hope
Orpheus (Reeve Carney) embodies the idealistic artist who believes that a song can restore balance to the world. Hadestown lays bare the painful clash between utopian art and a harsh material reality, questioning the role of hope in times of crisis.
In an era of uncertainty, the role of the artist and the power of the imagination emerge as an essential yet fragile form of resistance. Orpheus’s song does not instantly overthrow Hades, but it awakens the dormant empathy of the underworld’s tyrant and reminds the workers of their shared humanity.
The Power of Retelling
It’s a tragedy, but it’s a tragic story that we tell over and over again because there’s something in the trying that is human and beautiful. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is endlessly adaptable because it deals with hunger, love, and the conflict between the idealism of art and the cold realities of survival”
Anaïs Mitchell on her book Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown.
The great strength of Hadestown lies in its honesty. Guided by Hermes (André De Shields), we know from the very first song that the story ends in tragedy. And yet, we watch and we root for them every single time, hoping that Orpheus won’t look back at Eurydice.
As the musical teaches us, the act of retelling the story is not about waiting for a magical ending, but rather about celebrating the human capacity to persevere, to resist despair, and to keep alive the belief that the world could be better than it is. This is why Hadestown continues to resonate so powerfully: it speaks not only of the gods and monsters of the past, but of who we are today and what we might become tomorrow.
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The article above was edited by Ana Clara Bezson Dalla Costa.
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