One of the main themes in Hadestown is a little...weird.

I want to preface this with the fact that I love this show. It's fantastic, I cry every time I see it, and I do, always, ALWAYS somehow think that maybe THIS time it'll turn out different.

Hadestown has a lot of different themes going on, but one of them that is very blatant (and is arguably the core theme of the show) is the idea that a strong, collective voice can change the world into something better. The whole of the story is centered around Orpheus having this singular ability to move the gods with his song, and getting the masses to rally behind his song is integral to trying to bring about change down in Hadestown.

But here's the rub: for all the hopefulness, and the passion, and the drive...it's ultimately pointless. Orpheus fails, Eurydice vanishes, and we're given no indication that anything changes for the better. It seems like things may be working out, but the story stops before it shows us the seasons getting back to normal or anything getting better for the workers, it just resets so we can tell the story again.

I...find that very odd, because it seems to fly in the face of what the whole show is supposed to be about. Rather than saying "Try even in the face of impossibility", it says "If it seems impossible it is, you're doomed to fail." And obviously the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is old and well known and set in stone...but it seems like maybe that was a bad story to use as the framing for a lot of themes about "overcoming impossible odds", since those odds never actually get overcome.

I'm probably overthinking it. Still love this show, and can't wait to see the sequel where Orpheus goes full emo and gets torn apart by maenads for severly hashing the vibe.