Ok, we all miss Persephone’s verse in Chant Reprise for obvious reasons I’m not gonna mention here.
But! I also have another reason to miss it and it isn’t related to the lyrics. The staging of the verse itself adds a lot of symbolism to the scene. It shows Hades and Persephone’s relationship problem and also solves a solution to this problem without a single word really. So, during the 1st verse Hades tries to catch up with Persephone and shorten the distance between them while singing about how you need to give a woman diamonds and other shiny nonsense in order to hold her. But Persephone doesn’t let him come close, she’s keeping the pace and doesn’t let him come close. Which is actually a metaphone for all their relationship during the show: he gives gifts her and problems in order to come close, but this only pushes her away, because it’s no what she needs from him. However during Persephone’s verse everything comes back to balance as she sings about the before times when love was a main motivation for the world to go round. In the end of the verse they are finally on the same level near each other, they even hold hands for a moment:
And then they let go, referencing the fact that they are out of tune and the world is with them. Persephone shows in the verse that she would always come back in her own time, when it’s natural.
It’s honestly a very beautiful scene that literally says that Hades doesn’t need all these shiny gift and electric city to win Persephone’s love. Like he already has it, what he needs is to respect her boundaries.
With the current Broadway version the scene looses its beauty, because it only gives you a moment of chase, without the moment of balance. And it’s honestly sad.
Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk
