Theatre review: Hadestown

It would be unfair to say it left me cold, but the latest American musical to be heralded as the next big thing certainly left me a bit nonplussed. Anaïs Mitchell’s 2010 concept album Hadestown has been steadily gaining a following as a musical in the last couple of years, and having been performed off-Broadway and in Canada it’s due to open on Broadway next year. This is the production, directed by the show’s co-creator Rachel Chavkin, which opens first in the Olivier for what is essentially a big-budget try-out. A meandering rewrite of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Hadestown takes its musical style from New Orleans folk and jazz, and has accordingly transplanted Greek mythology to something like Depression-era Louisiana and a bar run by narrator Hermes (André De Shields.) The seasons are determined by the movement to and from the Underworld of its queen Persephone (Amber Gray,) but in recent years something’s gone wrong, leaving the world mostly in winter, with occasional bursts of summer but no autumn or spring.

Theatre review: Miss Saigon

Most long-lived big musicals have their day and, once they've closed in the West End, may be seen in later years in smaller productions. Miss Saigon, on the other hand, closed 15 years ago but now returns with as much pomp and publicity as it ever had. It seemed a bit of a gamble to me but Cameron Mackintosh must have known something I didn't about public demand for its return, as the show recouped its costs before press night, and has already extended its booking period into next year. Based on Madame Butterfly (doesn't everything seem to be?) Miss Saigon follows Kim (Eva Noblezada,) a 17-year-old orphan acquired by a Saigon brothel catering to US soldiers in the middle of the Vietnam war. She and a young sergeant, Chris (Alistair Brammer,) fall in love and plan to marry and return to America together, but the fall of Saigon and America's hasty retreat from Vietnam sees them parted.