Broadway’s Sensational ‘Hadestown’ Wrenches Myth into Modern Times: REVIEW

The world on stage at the Walter Kerr Theatre feels a lot like ours — scorched but soulful, a sort of dystopian now. As the first staccato notes of “Road to Hell” flit from an onstage trombone, it’s immediately clear that Hadestown, a haunting gut-punch of a new musical that opened on Broadway tonight, breathes the same air we do. This imaginative spin on Orpheus and Eurydice speaks with a bleeding heart to the here and now. It is both the most original and breathtaking musical of the season and a trenchant piece of political art.

The musical’s roots as a 2010 concept album from folk singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, developed for the stage with director Rachel Chavkin, are evident in its stripped-down and compact staging. A semi-circular colonnade encases the stage and seats an onstage band; a wrought-iron balcony lends a New Orleans flavor (scenic design is by Rachel Hauck). Consider it an American take on fallen Roman decadence.

Greed is to blame for the woes of Hadestown, where the seasons have been blighted by Hades unwillingness to share his wife Persephone, the goddess of harvest and fertility, with the world above ground (the pair are played with wry relish by Patrick Page and Amber Gray). This devil is also a rapacious capitalist, who lures a penniless, hungry Eurydice to the underworld with the promise of work and reward. Her love Orpheus, determined to compose a song that will restore natural order, follows behind to rescue her (Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney play the honey-voiced lovers).

A parable about the havoc wreaked by avarice on the natural world and its inhabitants could hardly seem more pointed. Throw in a pin-stripped megalomaniac leading a call-and-response about building a wall and it’s hard to believe Mitchell actually composed the score back in 2010. “We build the wall to keep us free,” sings Hades’ somber workforce. “The wall keeps out the enemy.” “Who do we call the enemy/ My children, my children?” Hades asks. “The enemy is poverty,” comes the response. The echoed exchange seems to reverberate right through the floorboards into the earth, and not just because Page since with a bass more gravely than Leonard Cohen’s.

Chavkin, a Tony nominee for Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, maintains a tight focus on storytelling (the venerable André De Shields plays Cupid, our narrator). Chavkin’s few visual flourishes (one in particular with lighting designer Bradley King) are all the more impactful given the production’s overall restraint even as it has grown in proportion (the show originated off-Broadway in 2017 and played London last year).

For all its chilling resonance, Hadestown is also a hoot. Gray’s Persephone is among the most wild and out there leading ladies since Oklahoma!’s Ado Annie. And the story offers s glimmer or two of hope to hang our hat on. Orpheus raises a cup of wine to the audience, a toast “to the world we dream about, and the one we live in now.” It’s further proof we’re witnessing a new dawn for American musicals.

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Temptations Musical ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ Makes a Play for Soul on Broadway: REVIEW
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‘Be More Chill’ Is Like an Incel’s Answer to ‘Mean Girls’: REVIEW
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Broadway’s ‘The Cher Show’ Is a Feast for Fans and an Assertion of Legacy: REVIEW

Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar

photos by matthew murphy

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Broadway’s Sensational ‘Hadestown’ Wrenches Myth into Modern Times: REVIEW

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If you think the circuit scene is dead, check out the photos from Black Party Rites XL
The Black Party is back and bigger and better than ever before…

www.queerty.com/think-circuit-scene-dead-check-photos-black-party-rites-xl-20190417?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden and the Politics of Touch

Amidst the furor over former Vice President Biden’s handsy habits – and with examples of inappropriate touching by current and former U.S. presidents still lingering – it might be a good time to recall how past politicians learned to use touch not to molest, intimidate or cow but to connect, engage and inspire.

No one was better at tactile politics than Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln lived in a time when American political culture valued touch. Handshaking had long been important as a sign of political and social etiquette.

Quakers, for example, preferred the handshake over doffing hats and bowing because the act had something of a democratic ring to it, denoting a rough equality.

By the early 19th century, handshaking was becoming both more American and masculine. French and British gentlemen were less inclined to shake hands and considered the American habit of sweaty handshaking “disgusting.”

Lincoln and American politicians cast their touch as a necessary part of political culture and engagement.

I’m a scholar of sensory history, and in my research I have found that elected and electable leaders during the 19th century especially had to touch voters, metaphorically and literally, a point Lincoln probably learned while glad-handing as a young traveling lawyer.

Right and wrong way

Then, as now, how you touched someone was politically risky. In the cultural and political ritual of American handshaking, care had to be taken not to slight or send the wrong message.

An essay entitled “Hand-Shaking,” from Harper’s Weekly of May 21, 1870, declared that refusing to shake hands was a “declaration of hostility,” but pressing the flesh had to be done with care.

Too tight a grip, the essay continued, indicated “tyranny,” a product of either unwitting strength or malicious intent. More “odious” was “he who offers you his hand, but will not permit you to get fair hold of it.” Such tactile diffidence reflected “cool contempt or supercilious scorn.”

Lincoln was a prodigious handshaker, and it added to his reputation as an egalitarian, common man, one literally and figuratively in touch with the people.

A marathon handshaking session in New York in February 1861 as president-elect left him with hurt hands. Just after his election as president, according to J. G. Holland in 1866, Lincoln met with crowds whose “hand-shaking … was something fearful” with “Every man in the crowd … anxious to wrench the hand of Abraham Lincoln. He finally gave both hands to the work, with great good nature.”

‘Shaky signature’

Lincoln’s hands were imprinted with politics, with key initiatives written into and onto his skin. According to Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, even Lincoln’s signature on the Emancipation Proclamation was riddled with the common touch because “he had been shaking hands all the morning, so that his writing was unsteady.”

Lincoln commented: “When people see that shaky signature they will say ‘See how uncertain he was.’ But I was never surer of anything in my life.”

The only cast of Lincoln’s hands, taken by Leonard W. Volk in Springfield, Illinois on the Sunday after Lincoln’s nomination in 1860, is deeply inscribed with a history of handshaking.

Volk made the cast after “thousands” had gone to Lincoln’s home, “passing through the house in single file, each citizen giving Lincoln a vigorous handshake.”

The cast tells the story of touch: “The swollen muscles that resulted from this reception are quite noticeable in the cast,” said essayist Laurence Hutton, who owned it.

It’s important to note that Lincoln not only used touch to connect with voters – as politicians still do – but that he did so within widely accepted rules – as some politicians no longer do.

Unlike Biden, Lincoln was no hugger, sniffer or caresser for the simple reason that those tactile and olfactory displays were wholly inappropriate among white men of the time.

But for Lincoln, those rules were no impediment.

Lincoln used the simple handshake to help engage a nation and guide it through an immensely difficult time of war and national upheaval. That’s a reminder that appropriate touching plays an important role in American political culture.

Mark M. Smith, Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden and the Politics of Touch

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HRC Responds to HHS Proposed Removal of Sexual Orientation Data Collection from Reporting System

HRC responded to the Trump-Pence administration’s latest attempt to undermine the rights and welfare of LGBTQ people. A proposed rule change from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would abandon data collection on the sexual orientation of youth in foster care and foster and adoptive parents and guardians in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS).

“The Trump-Pence administration’s latest assault on the LGBTQ community threatens to harm some of the most vulnerable youth in the foster care system,” said HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy. “LGBTQ youth are tragically overrepresented in foster care, and this attempt to erase them and important data on adoptive and foster parents undermines efforts to address the marginalization, harassment and discrimination that LGBTQ youth in foster care and families face. It’s crucial that fair-minded voices speak out now and demand that HHS reject this proposed rule change.”

The Children’s Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families is slated to publish the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) this Friday, April 19, in the Federal Register.  The public will have 60 days from then to comment on the proposal. The data from the AFCARS provides states, the Children’s Bureau, and foster care and adoption providers with valuable information to ensure safety and security to children in need of homes and families who will care for them.

LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in foster care, and fear of discrimination causes many LGBTQ parents to turn away from foster and adoption agencies. In a recent study, 70 percent of LGBTQ people surveyed said they were concerned or unsure about their ability to find an agency that would welcome them as an LGBTQ applicant, with 78 percent fearing being turned away because of their LGBTQ identity. Fifty-six percent were worried that agency staff wouldn’t be LGBTQ competent.

www.hrc.org/blog/hhs-proposed-removal-of-sexual-orientation-data-collection-from-system?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

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