⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. Eva Noblezada, André De Shields and Reeve Carney headline the screen version of Anaïs Mitchell’s folk opera. Credit: courtesy of Bleecker Street and LD Entertainment Until this week, I hadn’t seen Ha destown, the world-acclaimed folk opera created by Addison County native Anaïs Mitchell. Yes, even though, over the past two decades, Seven Days has been a comprehensive chronicler of the show’s progress, from the 2007 production at Barre’s Old Labor Hall to the 2016 off-Broadway and 2019 Broadway premieres to the eight Tony Awards and beyond. Hadestown is still on Broadway, and on August 26, Mitchell will headline the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival with Hadestown: The Musical. The live stage recording is currently playing a limited engagement at Montpelier’s Capitol and Savoy theaters, Essex Cinemas, Partizanfilm in Burlington, and the Majestic 10 in Williston. If, like me, you know Hadestown only by repute, here’s your chance to discover that this rip-roaring show about living in dark times is more relevant than ever. Director Brett Sullivan captured footage from three live performances of Hadestown at the Lyric Theatre, London, featuring the principal cast members of the original Broadway production. At once intimate and expansive, the film puts us right there for a sung-through production that is tough to imagine anywhere but the stage. The musical is framed as an age-old story told to an audience, narrated by the dapper, tireless Hermes (André De Shields) with sharp-tongued commentary from the chorus of Fates (Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne and Allie Daniel). Most of us already know the ancient Greek tale of the bard Orpheus (Reeve Carney) and his beloved Eurydice (Eva Noblezada), as well as the dark romance of Hades (Patrick Page), king of the underworld, and Persephone (Amber Gray), goddess of spring. In Mitchell’s music, book and lyrics, however, those two familiar stories intertwine with a dystopian vision that evokes both the scrappy, politically charged art of the 1930s and more recent movements. Act 1 begins in the world above. The set suggests a New Orleans speakeasy at midcentury, washed in the tender greens and lavenders of spring. But, we soon learn, the seasonal cycle has gone awry along with Persephone and Hades’ relationship, producing a climate of brutal extremes. Through this world of scarcity drifts a “hungry young girl” named Eurydice, focused on survival. Orpheus, the quintessential sensitive arty type, woos her with the promise of a song that will heal the world. But Hades promises her something even better — security. When Eurydice descends to the underworld, she finds a nightmare vision of the Rust Belt. Her destiny is to become a soulless shell toiling endlessly to maintain the walls of “Hadestown” against the surrounding world’s poverty and despair. Page’s chillingly deep, authoritative bass brings down the house as he unveils Hades’ master plan in “Why We Build the Wall.” Mitchell’s song predates MAGA and resurgent xenophobia, but that doesn’t make the moment any less spine-tinglingly urgent. As Hermes points out in “Road to Hell (Reprise),” the same stories will keep repeating themselves until we learn to tell new ones. And Hadestown’s story of Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his beloved is dark indeed, with hard-nosed Brechtian messaging that especially resonates in times of economic hardship. Yet Hadestown: The Musical is also an exuberant experience, filled with hummable, heartbreaking tunes and kinetic dance numbers. Sullivan’s cameras reveal nuances of performance that live viewers might miss, while also exploring new angles. From above, we get an overview of the rotating stage floor; from below, we briefly see the actors’ view as they drop into “hell.” Audience shots and audible reactions give us a visceral sense of how performers and spectators build on each other’s energy. Noblezada and Carney are appropriately fiery and droopy, respectively (Orpheus’ wet-blanket qualities serve the story). But our attention belongs primarily to De Shields, Page and Gray, who are electrifying in their every scene. De Shields’ wry narration guides us deftly through the story with no need for dialogue, and we seem to hear millennia of bitter experience in Gray’s voice as her Persephone pinballs between drunken carousing, painful self-awareness and fragile hope. To the legions of Hadestown fans out there, none of this will be a surprise. But if you’re not initiated, you may find the film an ideal chaser to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Both remind us of the role Greek myths play in helping us to envision (in the words of Persephone in “Livin’ It Up on Top”) “the world we dream about, and the one we live in now.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3.5 out of 5. Oliva Wilde in I Want Your Sex Credit: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures Hadestown also reminds us that artists have long been associated with breaking the rules, whether of the gods, nature or society. In his new comedy I Want Your Sex, starting Friday, July 31, at Partizanfilm, longtime provocateur Gregg Araki (The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin) casts Olivia Wilde as a trendy visual artist who’s as tricky as Hermes himself. Erika Tracy swans around in bondage gear, taunts her directionless young assistant (Cooper Hoffman) about his inhibitions and effortlessly guides him into the role of her submissive. Meanwhile, his age-appropriate girlfriend (Charli XCX) rolls her eyes at his sexual awakening. I Want Your Sex is a primary-colored, hedonistic comedy in which Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville play bumbling detectives — in other words, nothing to take too seriously. Unlike the recent Pillion, it doesn’t delve into the psychology of BDSM relationships, but it is a very funny send-up of the self-consciously transgressive art world. Spinning her naïve lover’s head around, Erika likes to make grand pronouncements about her profession, contradicting herself at every turn: Is art pure lies and obfuscation? Attention and money grabbing? Or, perhaps, the only route to the truth? Just like his character, Araki keeps us guessing. The post A Tragedy and a Comedy About Artists Breaking Rules: ‘Hadestown: The Musical’ and ‘I Want Your Sex’ appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less