I exist and I see the sun

literature and musicals I'm obsessed with

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

the fact that on my way out of seeing the hadestown proshot with my sibling i was walking to the theater exit and without even thinking about it i turned around to see where they were... yeah. yeah.

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

like. you can be frustrated at orpheus. you can be heartbroken for orpheus and eurydice. you should be. but when you're walking together and your loved one isn't right next to you that instinct to turn around and check on them is as natural as breathing

[giddy-seizure]

You cast a kid in your Columbus play one time, and now you’re a figment of his imagination as he explorers his sexuality

[rosemary-andtime]

so I was late to the realization that Wedding Song and the Persephone and Hades exchange in Chant are the same goddamn song but my god now that I'm here I'm having some feelings about it.

The call and response mirroring, Persephone and Eurydice speaking their needs (times being as they are, hard and getting harder all the time / it isn't right, it ain't natural), that symmetry is JUICY but then Hades and Orpheus! both answering in metaphor, both failing in different-but-same ways. The way Orpheus points to the world as it could be and Hades to the world as it is but NEITHER of them ultimately listen to what their loves need, neither of them can hear what's right in front of them. Orpheus answers Eurydice with hope (but you can't eat hope, she needs pragmatism and stability); Hades answers Persephone with pragmatism and stability when what she needs is hope.

and then the way Chant feels structurally like a degradation of Wedding Song, something that has broken down over the years and worn itself into the same tired bitter track uuugh Anaïs Mitchell when I catch you

[adelineflowerz]

im so obsessed w the way hadestown portrays masculinity. bc like hades is this very hypermasculine figure. he is a businessman who uses the excuse of providing for his wife to control Persephone and abuse his workers. when persephone refuses his advances, he moves his control over to Eurydice and takes advantage of her vulnerability. basically the poster child for toxic masculinity. he even sings not just the lowest notes in the show, but some of the lowest notes being sung on broadway right now. almost like he is overcompensating in his gender performance.

this is contrasted in a huge way when compared to orpheus who is as far away from traditionally masculine as he can get. he is sensitive, soft, an artist. he even creates life when he makes the flower for Eurydice. And when he is at his most powerful, he is singing some of the highest notes in the show. he is very comfortable acting outside of his gender norm

thats partly why orpheus was always doomed to fail hades's challenge because hades was forcing orpheus into his own toxic idea of masculinity: he leads, she follows. and that's never who orpheus was, nor how he should be.

[future-crab]

Imagine being Anais Mitchell and writing a song about the rhetoric of fascism so incisive and prescient that 10 years later an actual fascist would use that exact rhetoric down to the highly-specific phrasing in his presidential campaign. But also it took 10 years for the project you wrote that song for to move from living room shows to concept album to theater workshop to off-Broadway to Broadway, and its Broadway debut ended up coinciding with said fascist's successful bid for the presidency, and now it looks like your song that you wrote in 2005 is a super unsubtle reference to that one particular and highly-topical politician.

Frankly if I were her I would have started killing.

[takingupliminalspace]

I will never get over the fact that Hades and Persephone’s parts in Chant are a minor key version of Wedding Song, literally and figuratively

[room-temperature-orange-juice]

Cackling at Orpheus writing in his little notebook during Chant, so focused, making his song. Wtf is he writing for 18 hours straight while Eurydice dies in a blizzard. La la la

[dollygale]

hadestown and nolan’s odyssey being in theaters at the same time is like the hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby of greek retellings

[crowspetrat]

There are many reasons to love great comet but the best is that they gave the "villan" part to a tenor.

[quam-caecus-es]

Man what are you even doing with your life if the women don't all pity you (because you're married, but not in love) (because you are frozen at the centre) (you may be charming, but god knows you have No Sex) (repeat in french)

[giddy-seizure]

Pierre: You told me once a fallen woman should be forgiven!

Andrey: Yeah but I can’t do that. Other people should though

Pierre: Okay done

Andrey: You forgave Helene?

Pierre: No I forgave Natasha

[greatcheshire]

I know a lot of y'all are unfamiliar with Great Comet but I feel like I have to share the "NATALIE NATALIE NATALIE" moment because I think about it so goddamn often

[ghostlypawn]

"i asked chatgpt" "i asked grok" well i asked a great bear to maul the astronomer and to turn the cruel sister into a crow and put the crow and the corpse in a cave until the crow started to starve and she'd have no choice but to peck out the eyes of her lover and eat them :/

[sheismythorninthebushes]

act 2 Marvin makes me giggle and smile, act 1 Marvin makes me want to put him in a paper shredder

[thedyingswans]

”I just watched in trousers for the first time and I was confused and didn’t understand!!” ok in other news, water found to be wet and whizzer found to be down

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

alyosha karamazov is a great example of a character who does not make a lot of mistakes and is committed to being good and is very good but is still an endlessly fascinating and complex character. because contrary to popular belief goodness isn’t boring!!! it is actually incredibly difficult to choose what is good over and over again when it seems nothing good comes out of it! especially when everything around you is telling you you’re wrong and that your choices are worth nothing. and alyosha is told this repeatedly, that he is foolish and that his goodness is foolish because his father’s sins are in his blood, he is a karamazov just like him, and doesn’t he know it will catch up to him? doesn’t he bear the evil of his father and the brokenness of his brothers? and despite trying his best to mend his family, to bring his brothers together, he is repeatedly hurt by everyone he tries to help (remember the kid who almost bites off his finger?), his father is murdered by his own son, ivan is losing his sanity, mitya is framed and sent to prison. and the question alyosha has to confront over and over again is why even choose to be good when nothing comes of it? why continue doing something that has no profit? and it’s not like he doesn’t question this! it’s not like he doesn’t doubt what he’s doing! it’s not like alyosha doesn’t doubt his own faith when he expects a miracle from the man he considered a living saint and then his body rots away just like every other man! it shatters everything he thought he knew! but despite everything alyosha kisses the earth and says there is still something good here. there is still something worth doing even if it cannot save my father or my brothers. if i can even give one person some small, good, sacred memory that will sustain them, even if that is all i can give them, it is still good. it’s the story of the grand inquisitor. the argument answered with a kiss. the kiss is in the only way that argument can be answered, despite logic choosing to love

[b-plot-butch]

every dave malloy musical leaves no doubt in your mind that this man is Not well