Hadestown - West End - 26/05/2024
Dónal Finn (Orpheus), Melanie La Barrie (Hermes), Lauren Azania (Worker), Tiago Dhondt Bamberger (Worker), Lucinda Buckley (Worker Swing), Waylon Jacobs (Worker), Christopher Short (Worker)
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This is the very song that sent me 16 hours to London. Dónal plays Orpheus so hurt and angry here, it is genuinely as life changing as I thought it would be in real life, it's all you could ask for in an Orpheus. Also, we get changed lines after 'So I ask you...', instead of 'If it's true what they say, I'll be on my way. Tell me what to do!' , we get 'Brother, look around today. Is this how the world will stay? There must be another way!' which i think is very fitting for his Orpheus and also means we get Orpheus saying 'brother' in IIT again!! Melanie carries this production for the entire 2 and a half hours powerfully and I loved all the workers I watched that day, they were all so great. Feel free to yap at me about literally anything Hadestown West End related <3.
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one of my favorite things about a lot of different musicals is when they have their opening number reprised in their finale, the same melody and lyrics having an entirely new meaning to them thanks to the context of the rest of the show.
and obviously there are a Ton of examples (Wicked, Come From Away, The Outsiders, SpongeBob... i know there are others i can't think of them), but there are two specific shows that I genuinely think are examples of the absolute best use of this.
to me, those two examples are Cabaret and The Great Gatsby.
like the other examples listed, each time this sort of thing happens, there is new meaning given to the same song thanks to the rest of the show happening in between, but both Cabaret and Great Gatsby have it in like... a very chilling way.
In Willkommen and Roaring On, these are both somewhat upbeat songs, introducing the club, the parties, the energy that the audience is Supposed to feel at this point. nothing else matters in the world, only the thrill of endless entertainment.
but this isn't what these shows are about. there are much darker stories going on underneath, and by the time we get to the finale, the audience is changed along with the characters - but the song is the same. Nothing else Matters. only the thrill of Endless Entertainment. We have No Troubles Here.
but another thing that i find so musically fascinating is that it's not just the audience's perception of the song that changes, no the music itself helps to drive the audience to those realizations. at the orchestra's break in Willlkommen (finale), it begins very similar to the opener, but gradually adds more and more dissonance, making it harder and harder to even bear listening to. In Roaring On (finale), the ensemble lines are just slightly more staccato, slightly more dissonance, slightly more unnerving to listen to.
it's just so fascinating to watch a musical, and have the same song mean something so incredibly different, just because of the context it exists within, and very slight musical changes.
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