Review: Hadestown by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione

 

I last reviewed Hadestown in 2022, and I was quite enthusiastic, writing, “Let us thank the gods for Hadestown! Here is a production that has a devout appreciation for live music in its heart!” It is important to note that was the first touring production of it I saw, so last week I was quite excited to revisit this work. 

 

Hadestown had a long journey to get to the most recent Bass Concert Hall performances. It originated as a little indie theater project with music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell that toured Vermont and Massachusetts in 2006. Mitchell turned it into a concept album in 2010. In 2012 she began collaborating with director Rachel Chavkin, and the pair reworked and expanded the production that would eventually see its world premiere at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2016.  It would premiere in Canada in 2017, London in 2018, and finally on Broadway in 2019, where it still runs today.

 

This is the second North American national tour. It began in 2024, the same year the first tour concluded after hitting 85 cities in the United States and Canada. It's a non-Actors-Equity undertaking.

 

That's a lot of exposition—but after seeing ths production I was prompted to do a deep dive.

 

The staging is dramatically different in ways both obvious and subtle. The famous revolving stage and elevator are gone. Those were instrumental in creating the spectacle that was Orpheus's long journey to hell and back. While the lack of these practical effects could have been ameliorated with clever choreography, here it wasn't. In fact, the whole space felt rather pinched and the movement limited. And while this certainly added to the Underworld’s vibe, it contrasted with the Aboveworld set primarily via the lighting shift from red to blue/grey.

 

 

Ostensibly, Hadestown is  about parallel love stories: the one of Orpheus and Eurydice and that of Hades and his wife Persephone. It also leans heavily on thematic elements of class struggle and climate change. Writer Mitchell’s inspiration from Les Misérables is apparent in the first scene's introduction of the characters. Orpheus, however, does not have Jean Valjean's integrity. His tragic flaw is self-doubt, and his struggle to find hope in a post-apocalyptic world. Art is his answer, and Hadestown is a celebration of all things musical.

 

The current tour cuts a few corners there as well. Gone are all the orgiastic jams of the original I described as “the musical that finally gave the trombone its due.” This performance remains in sync but feels much more restrained, even mellow. The band is great. Their performance feels like a pickup jam session rather than a growling beast nipping at the bars of its sonic cage.

 

The performers are also phenomenal. Nickolaus Colón, as Orpheus, has the voice of an angel. He's much more Bruno Mars than Seal, but with his pizzicato guitar stylings he dips occasionally into Mumford and Sons territory. Hadestown employs music almost non-stop, keeping the pace brisk and avoiding the overindulgent lags that plague traditional Broadway. However, because movement is minimized, the story feels more rushed and it’s harder to develop empathy for the characters.

 

 

Namisa Mdlalose Bizana as Persephone and Hawa Kamara as Eurydice are immense singing talents. They play characters trapped against their will, victims of fate more by circumstance than because of tragic flaws. Kamara’s voice rings out with an agony that is larger than life and consequently larger than the context of the play, for none of these characters is given sufficient stage time to establish individuality. On the previous tour, the characters were made distinct through movement choices and by their interactions with the band. Suffice it to say that I sorely missed the vocal duet with the trombone player.

 

Hadestown maintains its place in the Broadway canon as an outlier because of its current political themes and choice of musical genre. Those are hard-wired into Mitchell’s music, lyrics, and book. However, this tour's production decisions water them down.

 

This may be Hadestown Lite, but it 's still an entertaining night of theater.

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Hadestown
by Anaïs Mitchell
touring company

Fri. Feb 20, 2026 at 8:00 pm
Sat. Feb 21, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Sat. Feb 21, 2026 at 8:00 pm
Sun. Feb 22, 2026 at 1:00 pm
Sun. Feb 22, 2026 at 6:30 p