The Hadestown fight scene ‘Papers’ has evolved over time. I’m unsure if it existed in the Vermont show, but on the album, it takes place after If It’s True; Orpheus hid out in Persephone’s speakeasy, and the track played when Hades discovered it and him, trashed it, and captured him after the fight (according to one of Anais’ concerts as well as the liner notes). It doesn’t say who fought him but I imagine Cerberus the guard; she was in the Vermont production and can still be heard on the album as the response in ‘Why We Build the Wall’. A 2012 draft had Orpheus imprisoned in the speakeasy itself.
For NYTW, the workers chorus were in the script and coming together as a concept, but they couldn’t afford a chorus so the main actors sang as them. For Papers, this meant that Orpheus was intercepted by Hades when he tried to grab Eurydice and run for it, and deflected and beaten up by the Fates, which raises the question since they ‘always sing in the back of your minds’ if NYTW Orpheus was really beating himself up. XD
Edmonton and on had the Workers beat Orpheus up, but the context changed between shows, too–in Edmonton Persephone held Eurydice back to stop her from getting hurt too (with Eury leaning into Seph’s shoulder), while in London the Workers attacked Orpheus in a purely metaphorical way with a no-contact ballet and the drummer going increasingly berserk. On Broadway and the tour, the Workers beat him up again and the Fates whisk Eurydice away, while Persephone looks like she wants to interfere in the fight but continually stops herself.
