![]() He’s a calm contrast to the world’s current crop of populists. Quinn, angular and Mephistophelian (to borrow from another myth), gives him a sombre paternal air even when he’s stirring up hatred of the other. The dapper Hades is partly a wry homage to Leonard Cohen, complete with rumbling bass voice, and you could easily imagine Cohen singing the stark, chilling Why We Build the Wall. As an embodiment of spring, Oliveras takes a little time to warm up, but by the second act she’s in full life-force mode, making a sympathetic plea on behalf of Orpheus to her callous husband. ![]() Meanwhile, Oliveras’s Persephone, a classy lady in a verdant green gown, evokes such blues queens as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. Whitley’s Eurydice, looking like a goth urchin, is his perfect counterpoint, with an appealing toughness that recalls Mitchell’s mentor, singer Ani DiFranco. But Mitchell and Chavkin counter that inevitability with the seductive originality of their concept and the sheer exuberance in which it’s delivered.įor this touring production, they have a charming Orpheus in Rodriguez, who has an innocent, teddy-bear quality and a voice that’s high and sweet, as befits a symbol of poetic naiveté. It’s a dark story with a tragic outcome – the show’s narrator, the messenger god Hermes (Nathan Lee Graham), reminds us of that at the very beginning. As Mitchell reconceives it, her idealistic Orpheus journeys down into a capitalist Hell to save an impoverished Eurydice who has suffered a death of the spirit, having sold herself to an industrial magnate to avoid starvation.Īlong the way, Mitchell touches on climate change, populism and xenophobia, and even recasts her hero as a nascent union organizer. The 2019 Tony Award winner, whose North American tour is currently burning up the stage of Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, is a tale for today. ![]() Anaïs Mitchell’s thrilling musical is an inspired take on the myth that succeeds at being timely, old-time-y and timeless, all at once. My own favourite Orphic riffs include Jean Cocteau’s surreal film Orphée, Tennessee Williams’s poetic melodrama Orpheus Descending and Sarah Ruhl’s memory play Eurydice. His ill-fated attempt to retrieve his dead wife Eurydice from the clutches of Hades in the Underworld has been retold endlessly in many forms, from operas to graphic novels. If you’re Orpheus, that enchanting minstrel of Greek mythology, we know the answer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |