Texts for a new time: Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown

A utopian tragedy on Broadway

Texts for a new time is a space where I share recommendations — books, music, apps, or other works that bring forward humanity’s potential. Today’s text for a new time is a musical by Anaïs Mitchell: Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2019.

Art by Nesli Erten

I discovered Hadestown at the end of June. I loved Hadestown so much it practically hurt. 

I listened to the original cast album straight through while walking from Florence down the Northampton Bike Path to Child’s Park and back. It was Persephone-strange being so deep in the underworld while also walking out under the sun. 

Bicycle riders passed me from behind, chirping “On your left!” without realizing that I was sobbing from listening to the music of Hadestown. 

I’m working on a song
It isn’t finished yet
But when it’s done
And when I sing it
Spring will come again

I discovered Hadestown and then there was nobody else who understood. I tried to make them understand, but I couldn’t. I tried to find people who understood, but I couldn’t. 

It was as if Hadestown wanted me to feel that physical pain of feeling completely alone with your song: the pain Orpheus held for so long, the pain of knowing there’s something that’s hopeful that’s not yet accessible to everyone who needs it. The pain of believing that utopia is still possible and that you are someone who can do something about it. 

A song to fix what’s wrong
Take what’s broken, make it whole
A song so beautiful
It brings the world back into tune, 
Back into time
And all the flowers will bloom

What I love about Orpheus is not only his capacity to labor, alone, for so long, on such a long shot. What I love about Orpheus is that he saw a broken world of raging winds and blazing heat, and concluded that he wasn’t going to be its victim. 

Orpheus is no shrill activist, no strident changemaker, no supremacist world-builder. He had the crucial insight that the scarcity surrounding him wasn’t the work of man; he had the wild audacity to imagine he could heal the broken hearts of actual Gods. He worked and worked in the most faith-filled way to create a simple perfect thing of beauty. And it did save the world. Hadestown is at once utterly tragic and it is soaringly utopian. Gosh, I needed that. 

Orpheus is who we each are when we find our song, work our song, sing our song. Through Hadestown and in so many ways, Anaïs Mitchell gives us the courage to choose this despite everything. May we each find our way to this, our crucial and only true work. Because,

It isn’t finished yet—