REVIEW: ‘Hadestown: The Musical’ Is A Captivating Theatrical Treat

Greek mythology is having a cultural moment. The Odyssey and Percy Jackson and the Olympians are making a splash on the big and small screens, respectively, but onstage, Hadestown: The Musical has been a phenomenon over twenty years in the making. A jazzy retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, Anaïs Mitchell‘s beloved musical made its way to Broadway in 2019 after over a decade of development and workshopping.

Reuniting the original Broadway cast for a brief time during the musical’s West End run in 2025, Hadestown: The Musical integrates footage from several performances to capture the smash hit from all angles. We see the show in wide shots, as though we’re sitting right in the theater among the musical’s live audience, but Clayton Jacobsen‘s cinematography weaves through the stage, too, placing us next to the actors, as though we’re performing alongside them.

As the show’s lyrics repeatedly assure the audience, this is a tale that has been told before, and “we’re gonna sing it again.” It’s a delightfully meta nod to the art of live theater, how a show is performed night after night. Perhaps that’s why Hadestown: The Musical lends itself so well to what’s known as the “proshot”—professional recording of a theatrical production—format rather than adapting it into an actual film.

A familiar tale gets a revitalized take in the beloved musical. 

Hadestown: The Musical follows young lovers Orpheus (Reeve Carney), an optimistic musician, and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada), a hardened realist, who meet during a harsh famine. Their romance blossoms after Persephone (Amber Gray), goddess of springtime, emerges from months in the Underground and restores the world to warmth and bloom. But Persephone’s husband, Hades (Patrick Page), retrieves her and returns her to their home in the Underworld months early, ushering in a brutal, endless winter.

Orpheus is hard at work on a song that he believes will revive springtime, but his incessant rewriting and artistic perfectionism render the song unfinished. Eurydice scrappily tries to keep them afloat, but the harsh winter and lack of food are unsurvivable.

When Hades offers Eurydice a place in the Underworld in exchange for food and shelter, it’s an irresistible offer despite Eurydice’s love for Orpheus. Determined to make things right, Orpheus seeks the counsel of Hermes (André De Shields), who advises him to journey to the Underworld and bring Eurydice home.

The buzz of the theatrical production is brought to life. 

Director Brett Sullivan captures Hadestown: The Musical with vivid intimacy. The camera moves over the characters’ shoulders to demonstrate their points of view, then back to give a full view of David Neumann‘s energetic choreography. Clayton Jacobsen‘s cinematography wonderfully captures each character’s facial expressions in ways that could only be seen from the front rows of a theater, but the camera’s constant motion feels distracting, as if it’s trying to keep up with the choreography rather than capture it.

The cast is in stellar form, having performed in Hadestown: The Musical off and on for six years before the performances filmed here. The opening number proclaims this is “the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice,” but takes care to remember that it’s Hades whose name lends itself to the title.

Gray and Page’s Persephone and Hades, a couple in a strained marriage as they live between worlds, are excellent and given nearly as much time to shine as Orpheus and Eurydice. De Shields is a dapper, cautious narrator, interacting with the primary quartet when the plot calls for it, but reminds us all that triumph and tragedy are ahead.

Eva Noblezada’s star magnetism as Eurydice is on display in Hadestown: The Musical.

Carney and Noblezada exhibit lovely chemistry. Noblezada is the standout of the two, balancing Eurydice’s skepticism and scrappiness with a gentle vulnerability, best exhibited in “All I’ve Ever Known,” a number in which Eurydice’s reserve gives way to her romance with Orpheus.

Carney’s lovestruck Orpheus is charming too, but the sound design in group numbers drowns him out when it should elevate. “Come Home with Me,” Orpheus’ declaration of love, obscures Carney’s voice among the ensemble when he should be the most audible, especially given that Orpheus is a musician.

The benefit of having multiple angles of a live performance is the ability to see characters up close. It’s enchanting to see Orpheus and Eurydice fall for one another, with their longing glances and genuine smiles. Hadestown: The Musical lives and dies by the chemistry of its leads, and it’s well-demonstrated here as shots cut between Carney’s boyish smile and Noblezada’s steely yet soft gaze. Marko Keser and David Tregoning‘s editing mostly succeeds here, weaving intimate close-ups with wide shots of the whole stage to deliver the full impact of the theatrical experience.

The intimacy helps elevate the performances, but struggles in a key moment.

But that intimacy works against Hadestown: The Musical at certain crucial moments, including, perhaps, the most famous moment in the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. For the uninitiated, we will not spoil it, but the editing cuts away from the show’s most important choreographed moment, choosing to focus on the characters’ faces in close-up rather than giving it a moment to be impactful in a wide shot. Even a second or two to linger on it, before moving to close-ups, might have been powerful.

It’s a disappointing misstep in an otherwise well-captured recording. The point is to capture the whole experience, so why not let the moment linger for a second?

There’s time enough to demonstrate the choreography and the actors’ facial expressions, but the editing doesn’t give it that time. The rest of Hadestown: The Musical, at least, is in excellent form. Mitchell’s gorgeous music and lyrics are haunting and catchy, keeping it jazzy and upbeat with an undercurrent of tragedy as the musical barrels towards its electrifying conclusion.

Hadestown: The Musical will keep you coming back.

Save for some technical choices that distract from the theatrical experience, Hadestown: The Musical is a beautiful capture of one of the most beloved modern musicals. The beauty of a recording like this is its ability to bring theater to audiences who may not have the geographic or financial means to experience live theater on this scale.

What a wonderful thing, to capture a beloved musical in its prime, with the cast that made it famous. “We’re gonna sing it again” is often repeated throughout Hadestown: The Musical. It’ll be no surprise if audiences see it again and again, too.

Hadestown: The Musical is out now in theaters.