Hermes: And turned it into wine . . .
This launched a joyful, much-expanded choreographic breakdown from choreographer David Neumann. The dance stayed, the grapes did not.
London
In every version of the song before Broadway, Persephone came out swingin’ with her first verse and chorus, and the second verse belonged to Orpheus. But I struggled mightily to write a verse for him that felt authentic. I remember miserably hunting for a new Orpheus verse in my little flat in London. At the National Theatre only, he sang:
Orpheus: Up on top, times might be hard / But we’re livin’ it—livin’ it up / Cos we got our beating hearts / And we’re living it up on top / We got breath inside our lungs, and we’re
Orpheus & Chorus: Livin’ it—livin’ it up
Orpheus: Gonna spend it singing songs
Orpheus & Chorus: Livin’ it up on top!
Orpheus: Brother, we’re gonna sing together / Gonna let the music play / We’re gonna get this band to blow the hard times all away / Cos the winter days were long / But this summer night is young! / And right now we’re livin’ it . . .
Broadway
In the course of the big Orpheus shift between London and Broadway, I realized that perhaps the reason it had been so hard to write believable material for him in “Livin’ It Up on Top” was that it was out of character for him to sing in that number, unbidden. He felt much more welcome once he’d been called upon to deliver the toast. For Broadway, I replaced the Orpheus verse with another Persephone verse (Who makes the summer sun shine bright? / That’s right! Persephone!), and the song became a full-on diva number for Amber Gray.
I was still exploring language for Orpheus’s final toast to Persephone, though. I’d written a “darker” toast for London, so that instead of blithe gratitude for The sunshine and the fruit of the vine she gives us every year, he indicated that all was not as it should be: May she stay awhile this time . . . For Broadway I went even further with the idea:
Orpheus: To the patroness of all of this: / Persephone! / (Hear, hear!)
Who has finally returned to us with wine enough to share
So let no one go without / Let us pour the last drop out
In every cup, in every hand / So if hard times come again, then
We can all recall the taste / Of this wine, this time and place
And the way that it tastes better / When we drink of it together
And if no one takes too much . . .
I really loved that language! But the fact was, it was too long. Producer Tom Kirdahy said so very simply at a postproduction meeting at Hurley’s Saloon on Forty-Eighth Street, and he was right. So the Orpheus toast came full circle—the text on Broadway is very similar to what audiences heard off-Broadway in 2016.
ALL I’VE EVER KNOWN
Hermes
Orpheus was a poor boy
But he had a gift to give
He could make you see how the world could be
In spite of the way that it is
And Eurydice was a young girl
But she’d seen how the world was
When she fell, she fell in spite of herself
In love with Orpheus
Eurydice
I was alone so long
I didn’t even know that I was lonely
Out in the cold so long
I didn’t even know that I was cold
Turn my collar to the wind
This is how it’s always been
All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own
All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own
But now I wanna hold you, too
You take me in your arms
And suddenly there’s sunlight all around me
Everything bright and warm
And shining like it never did before
And for a moment I forget
Just how dark and cold it gets
All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own
All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own
But now I wanna hold you
Now I wanna hold you
Hold you close
I don’t wanna ever have to let you go
Now I wanna hold you
Hold you tight
I don’t wanna go back to the lonely life
Orpheus
I don’t know how or why
Or who am I that I should get to hold you
But when I saw you all alone against the sky
It’s like I’d known you all along
I knew you before we met
And I don’t even know you yet
All I know’s you’re someone I have always known
Orpheus & Eurydice
All I know’s you’re someone I have always known
And I don’t even know you
Now I wanna hold you
Hold you close
I don’t wanna ever have to let you go
Eurydice
Suddenly there’s sunlight, bright and warm
Orpheus
Suddenly I’m holding the world in my arms
Eurydice
Say that you’ll hold me forever
Say that the wind won’t change on us
Say that we’ll stay with each other
And it will always be like this
Orpheus
I’m gonna hold you forever
The wind will never change on us
Long as we stay with each other
Orpheus & Eurydice
Then it will always be like this
Notes on “All I’ve Ever Known”
Off-Broadway
I can remember the chorus of “All I’ve Ever Known” coming to me in a half-sleeping, half-waking nap state in bed. We were living in Vermont then and the sun fell on our floral bedroom wallpaper in stripes. That liminal nap state can be so fruitful creatively; many times Rachel would wake up from a nap with some fresh dramaturgical insight or staging idea. “All I’ve Ever Known” was the second of the two “missing act” songs from the Jim Nicola dinner. It was, at first, a Eurydice feature—the NYTW version of the song was all hers, with the exception of Orpheus’s I’m gonna hold you forever vows at the very end.
The song was satisfying to me because it honored Eurydice’s toughness and vulnerability at the same time. I loved it structurally, but it made for a confusing scene because it was like—is this a soliloquy, or is Eurydice singing to Orpheus? Does he hear her? And if so, why doesn’t he respond?
Edmonton
The Edmonton version of the song was the same, but it was preceded by instrumental music underscoring Hermes’s In spite of herself . . . intro and accompanying a stylized, choreographed lovemaking scene between Orpheus and Eurydice. I added the lovemaking in response to the off-Broadway note that our young lovers seemed . . . young. Their relationship felt juvenile, the stakes weren’t high enough. In Edmonton it also happened that Orpheus fell asleep post-coitus (men!), so Eurydice could then sing the entirety of “All I’ve Ever Known” to his sleeping form and only wake him for the final outro vows. It’s probably obvious, but the melody of the outro vows is a foreshadowing of Promises.
London
I’m sure others had suggested it, but when Reeve Carney said in London that he wished Orpheus had a moment where he could genuinely express his love for Eurydice in the first act, it suddenly seemed crystal clear that it had to happen in “All I’ve Ever Known.” I couldn’t bear to touch the Eurydice lines, so I tacked on an extra verse and chorus for Orpheus. I knew you before we met / And I don’t even know you yet was a little gift from the gods, and that couplet pointed the way to Orpheus’s inversio
n of the chorus: All I know’s you’re someone I have always known / And I don’t even know you. Cosmic love!
In London, our more gregarious Orpheus sang: I never walked alone / Always had a crowd to gather round me. This idea was one we’d toyed with for a long time: that the source of Orpheus’s power is his audience, his communion with others. He sings, and the world sings back. Faced with the final trial of walking and singing alone, he fails, because his faith never resided within him to begin with. But the Always had a crowd line had a self-aggrandizing tone that had to go in the big Orpheus rewrite, so I arrived at I don’t know how or why / Or who am I that I should get to hold you. That humility was more endearing, and I was also becoming obsessed with the idea of Orpheus repeating the language of his own love story in his description of the love story of Hades (in “Epic III,” he sings: You didn’t know how / And you didn’t know why / But you knew that you wanted to take her home). I found myself very moved any time Orpheus connected his own experience with that of Hades. That’s where the parallel lines Suddenly I’m holding the world in my arms and It was like you were holding the world when you held her came from, and these didn’t appear until Broadway.
Still, the London duet version of “All I’ve Ever Known” was a revelation. For the first time, the lovers sang together in harmony in the first act (“Wedding Song” is mostly back-and-forth banter). I loved the new structure, but Rachel began to despair about the staging of it, and the reason was this: The song had accumulated length. Orpheus was now wide awake and fully engaging with Eurydice, but the lovemaking was over and done with before the singing even began. As Rachel put it, all the tension had gone out of the scene.
Broadway
For Broadway, I moved the instrumental interlude (and the lovemaking) close to the end of the song—just before the outro vows. There was one little moment that made tears spring to my eyes many times. It wasn’t a lyrical moment, but it seemed to unconsciously tap into many of the show’s old and discarded lyrics. It was a brief choreographic / staging moment, after the lovemaking, when the lovers lay on their backs side by side, holding hands and looking up at the sky. At the stars. It reminded me of how the stars had played such an important role in the early Vermont version of the show, with the Fates naming the constellations, and the idea of our destinies being “written in the stars.” And it moved me, I think, because of the knowledge of where our lovers were headed: a world without stars.
WAY DOWN HADESTOWN
Hermes
On the road to hell there was a railroad track
Company
Mmmm . . .
Persephone
Oh, come on!
Hermes
There was a train coming up from way down below
Company
Mmmm . . .
Persephone
That was not six months!
Fates
Better go get your suitcase packed
Guess it’s time to go . . .
Hermes
She’s gonna ride that train
Company
Ride that train!
Hermes
She’s gonna ride that train
Company
She’ll ride that train!
Hermes
She’s gonna ride that train to the end of the line
Company
Mmmm . . .
Hermes
Cos the king of the mine is a-comin’ to call
Company
Mmmm . . .
Hermes
Did you ever wonder what it’s like?
On the underside
Company
Way down under
Hermes
On the yonder side
Company
Way down yonder
Hermes
On the other side of his wall?
Follow that dollar for a long way down
Far away from the poorhouse door
You either get to hell or to Hadestown
Ain’t no difference anymore
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Hound dog howl and the whistle blow
Train come a-rollin’ clickety-clack
Everybody tryna get a ticket to go
But those who go, they don’t come back
They’re going
Hermes & Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Persephone
Winter’s nigh and summer’s o’er
Hear that high and lonesome sound
Of my husband coming for
To bring me home to Hadestown
Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Persephone
Down there it’s a buncha stiffs!
Brother, I’ll be bored to death
Gonna have to import some stuff
Just to entertain myself
Give me morphine in a tin!
Give me a crate of the fruit of the vine
Takes a lot of medicine
To make it through the wintertime
Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Fates
Every little penny in the wishing well
Every little nickel on the drum
Workers
On the drum!
Fates
All them shiny little heads and tails
Where do you think they come from?
Workers
They come from
Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Hermes
Everybody hungry, everybody tired
Everybody slaves by the sweat of his brow
The wage is nothing and the work is hard
It’s a graveyard in Hadestown
Company
Way down Hadestown
Hermes
Mister Hades is a mean old boss
Persephone
With a silver whistle and a golden scale
Company
An eye for an eye!
Hermes
And he weighs the cost
Company
A lie for a lie!
Hermes
And your soul for sale!
Company
Sold!
Persephone
To the king on the chromium throne
Company
Thrown!
Persephone
To the bottom of a sing-sing cell
Hermes
Where the little wheel squeal and the big wheel groan
Persephone
And you better forget about your wishing well
Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Hermes
On the road to hell there was a railroad car
Company
Mmmm . . .
Hermes
And the car door opened and a man stepped out
Company
Mmmm . . .
Hermes
Everybody looked and everybody saw
It was the same man they’d been singin’ about
Persephone
You’re early
&
nbsp; Hades
I missed you
Fates
Mr. Hades is a mighty king
Must be making some mighty big deals
Seems like he owns everything
Eurydice
Kinda makes you wonder how it feels . . .
Hermes
All aboard!
A one, a two, a one, two, three, four!
Company
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Way down Hadestown
Way down under the ground!
Way down under the ground!
Way down under the . . . ground!
Notes on “Way Down Hadestown”
Vermont
The music and the first few lines of this song came to me well before the show was a gleam in my eye. I was twenty-one years old, on a brief hiatus from college and living in Austin, Texas, with my then boyfriend, now husband, Noah. I was frustrated that I hadn’t written anything new in a long time and I told N I was going in the bathroom with my guitar and not to let me out until I had written something, anything, at least two verses. We had recently made a bus trip to Mexico and I’d been shocked by the poverty I’d seen crossing the border at Juárez. We were also in the thick of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” and I had just served cocktails to some climate change–denying oil lobbyists at the bar on Sixth Street where I was waitressing. I came out of the bathroom with this: