HADESTOWN at the National Theatre in London - Previews

Anyone planning on catching any early previews? The show begins its London run this Friday, November 2.

I love this preview video https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/VIDEO-Inside-Rehearsals-for-HADESTOWN-with-Reeve-Carney-Eva-Noblezada-and-More-20181029

Wow, this looks like it's going to be amazing! Does anyone know if the London space is in the round? It seems like that to me. Choreography looks great. It seems very different from the NYTW choreo.

Only one more sleep!!!!

Well that was a crushing disappointment...

Caveats

I knew nothing about the show other than the Comet connection to Chavkin and Grey. I also had seats in the circle so a bit away from the stage but still had a great view.

The Good

The musical itself was fantastic as was the singing from everyone but the lead male who I thought was miscast but still very good.

The Bad

Everything’s else. I HATED the set and staging, it just did not work. It hobbled the whole production. The direction was terrible. It was DULL when it should’ve been exciting. It was people twirling around on a revolving stage for 2 hours. The choreography was killed by the set as was the entire cast even doing the simplest of things like trying to do anything other than sing. Spin spin spin...

I am hoping they can iron some of this out during previews and getting people to use what little stage they have a little more and drag us into the story a little instead of the audience straining to understand the lyrics so they know wtf is going on.

As it stands it is little better than a stage reading of a concept album spinning on a turntable.

If Meh-ta is what they are aiming for, they passed with flying colours. As the thrilling original piece of theatre that it is crying out to be it fails miserably and that makes me very sad for all involved.

Updated On: 11/3/18 at 07:55 PM

Bwayfan292 said: "The negative reactions are more on twitter"

I just searched “Hadestown” on Twitter and I went back pretty far and everything I saw was positive. Can you link specific tweets?

There is nothing wrong with the set visually, it is the constraints it puts on the performers that is the problem. It looks like a tiny set dropped in the middle of a massive stage and it gave me flashbacks of the terrible 'meta' version of The Colour Purple. For the first 10 minutes I kept wondering why they were building a railroad in the middle of B.B Kings' Blues Bar.

While the 'turntable' is used to great effect towards the end of the show, the rest of the time it is used to spin people around instead of them moving about the stage and filling the (tiny) available space.

Instead of a row of dancers fanned out across the stage, they are spinning around a small circle in the centre of the stage....endlessly. The visual impact of the choreography is lost to the point that they may as well not even be there.

During major dramatic moments when the characters are singing to each other, instead of facing each other and emoting the lyrics, they stand dead still facing the opposite direction and spinning in opposite directions on the turntable. I got the 'metaphor' (how could you not it's there the whole show), but the emotion of the material is lost.

It's just 'odd', really, really odd and instead of enjoying the production and being pulled into the story and what was happening on an emotional level, I found myself constantly pulled out of the material by wtf directorial decisions. I spent the whole night thinking, this should be so damned exciting, but it is as flat as a tack!

The fact that Chavkin had gone from using the space so brilliantly in Comet to this is just mind boggling.

When the curtain call is the most emotionally affecting moment of the production (apart from the obvious BIG moment in the show) something is very wrong.

The Canadian production looked MUCH better as the turntable was a small part of a sparse stage with plenty of room to breathe.

It is such a shame as the material and performers/performances are SO strong.

If this staging goes to Broadway, they can kiss those otherwise much deserved Tonys goodbye!