thinking about hadestown as a story in which each character realizes both that they’re in a time loop + that there is an audience observing them at different points throughout the show
there’s this moment in if its true where it seems like orpheus is pleading with the audience to change how the story goes. eurydice knows this has happened before by come home with me reprise (“i can sing us home again” “no, you can’t” “yes, i can” “no, you don’t understand”) but orpheus doesn’t know until doubt comes in (“who am i to think that she would follow me into the cold and dark again?”). the gods are both observed and observing (hades and persephone and hermes all stand off to the side for most of the show when they aren’t the main people in a scene); for hades and persephone, this happens year after year anyways without any kind of time loop narrative, but hermes is fully aware from the beginning of the narrative structure of the story, obviously.
persephone knows all along that she’s being observed, but the amount she cares varies between actors (amber gray’s persephone does not care that there’s an audience; jewelle blackman’s persephone is desperate for this story to be witnessed). hades never knows.
cause here’s the thing! to know how it ends!! and still!!! begin!!!! to sing it again!!!!!
there’s something about orpheus’s sharp features vs the softness of his soul contrasted with eurydice’s round face and smooth hair vs the hard barrier she puts between herself and the world
laaaaaaaa lala la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa LAAAAAaaaA LALA LaaaA LA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LAAAaaaAAA LALA LA LA LAAAAAAaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LAAAAA LALA LA LAAAAAAA
the thing i really love about hadestown is anais mitchell took this myth that has (at least as it’s been told to me) been framed as “sometimes you get really close and you still fail, because humans are flawed and it just sucks” and she said “no you guys, what orpheus was trying to do should have been impossible and he almost made it anyway. the only reason he failed is because he stopped believing he could succeed”
