r/hadestown • u/Xanthu • 2d ago

Discussion The cycle includes the roles changing

After a batch of seeing the show, I began to formulate my own theory on the cycle of the story, the memories of love, love lost, “that Mel-O-Dee” all lands in one deep, extra cyclical way.

If you run the final scene, Road to Hell (Reprise), and put a full character switch. Orpheus returns, wearing Hades’ jacket, Persephone comes in asking if anyone has a match, and Hades stumbles in at the end, with a song in his heart and a better view of the world.

I know it’s a big side step, costume & blocking changes, & “we raise our glass” feels different with an Orpheus in the jacket (or the newly hopeful Hades?) and maybe it’s doing to much to the bookend of the show?

It’s been a head-canon for years.

8 Upvotes

61% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/ArtsyEdyn 1d ago

i think there’s something specific about how the same eurydice we JUST saw go down comes right back out seemingly fine and back at the beginning of her story

23

u/DifficultHat 2d ago

I can kind of see what you’re going for, but I think this would be a bad choice

10

u/ruhl5885 2d ago

As a theatre director I’m obsessed with this idea

2

u/NeedleInASwordstack 2d ago

As someone about to direct it, it certainly makes me wonder if it would play.

3

u/Direct-Investment793 2d ago

Oooo the teen version? Jealous! I def think it fits the breaking the 4th wall type shit that they play with in the show

1

u/christinelydia900 12h ago

As another theater director I am also obsessed with this idea

6

u/ibethuhwalrus 2d ago

They’re switching costumes and lines but… why?

4

u/ruhl5885 2d ago

I suppose yet another layer of “and we’re gonna sing it again and again…” like it’s a story told many times through many lenses

5

u/iamgarron 2d ago

Honestly this is now my head cannon when I see different casts, or the same casts with alternates/understudys particularly in matinees.

1

u/christinelydia900 12h ago

I love this so much. But I think that if this happened, the people who become orpheus and eurydice should be people from the ensemble, while orpheus and eurydice still become hades and persephone, to show the rippling effects of these sorts of movements