Saul Rosenthal, PhD

Doubt and Hope in Hadestown

*Spoilers ahead for the musical Hadestown*

I was fortunate enough to see Hadestown when it played in Boston. Anaïs Mitchell’s musical intertwines two classical myths. The main story focuses on Orpheus, a “poor boy” with the gift of music, and Eurydice, the “hungry young girl” who was a “a runaway from everywhere she’d ever been,” until the two meet. Their journey through life, death, and afterlife take place in the context of the conflicted relationship between Hades, King of the Underworld, and Persephone, part-time Goddess of the Spring and Summer, and part-time Queen of the Underworld.

I’m not the first to consider Hadestown (let alone the mythological figures involved) from a psychological perspective. Alisa Hurwitz writes about the play from a cognitive behavioral therapy perspective, while Fletcher Wortmann looks at the role that uncertainty plays in the many iterations of the Orpheus story. I urge you to read their analyses (after reading this one, of course!).

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Saul R December 11th, 2021

Posted In: Movies, Television, and Theater, Musings, Psychology