Hell is a musical mecca in ‘Hadestown’

I mean, the music is great down there.

The road show of the Tony-winning Broadway hit is at Centennial Hall, which rang with the bluesy score at the April 12 opening.

The musical, by Anaïs Mitchell, meshes a couple of Greek myths: Hades and Persephone, and Orpheus and Eurydice. Hades is king of the underworld; his wife Persephone married him long ago but she spends six months of each year above so she can indulge in the sunny weather. Which results in a world thick with a dicey climate.

Orpheus, whose love, Eurydice, is stuck in the underworld, finds his way down to the depths and convinces Hades to let him take her back above. Hades agrees only if Orpheus leads the way and doesn’t look back at her until they’ve reached their destination.

Mitchell sticks Hermes, the messenger god, into the story. He serves as our narrator.

The almost-dialogue-free play opens with the rousing “Road to Hell” and the music doesn’t stop pulling you in. And it often moves you.

Luckily, this first-rate cast does it justice.

In mythology, Orpheus was a renowned musician, poet and prophet. If one imagines his angelic voice, it would surely sound just like Nicholas Barasch. He grabbed ballads and the more upbeat tunes with heart and oh-wow vocals. His rendition of “Epic III,” in which he tries to convince Hades to let him take Eurydice from the underworld, is stunningly beautiful.

The whole cast deserves accolades. Morgan Stobhan Green infused Eurydice with a street-wise vulnerability. Levi Kreis, a Tony-winner for his role as Jerry Lee Lewis in “Million Dollar Quartet,” filled his Hermes with wit. Kimberly Marable’s Persephone was gritty and forceful. And Kevyn Morrow put his deep baritone and impressive stature to good use in the role of Hades.

Mitchell first introduced “Hadestown” in 2006; she then made a concept album and, working with director Rachel Chavkin, took Broadway by storm in 2019.

So it is impressive how prescient it was. The call-and-answer song “Why We Build the Wall,” has Hades demanding to know the solid reasons for building the wall they continually work on. “Because we have and they have not / Because they want what we have got,” is one response. Mitchell wrote that long before building a border wall became a thing.

And it’s hard not to think of climate change: the weather and the devastations it can bring are a constant theme throughout.

But Mitchell didn’t set out to make a political statement. The singer-songwriter wanted to turn some of her much-loved Greek myths into a musical.

And she has done that with wild success.

On top of that, she made hell a pretty rockin’ place.