I’d shortened the beginning of “Epic III,” but I remained obsessed with the idea of shortening the ending as well. I became fixated on switching to a three-versus-four-stanza version of the final acoustic section. This is what I came up with:
Orpheus: I know how it is because he is like me / I know how it is to be left all alone / There’s a hole in his arms where the world used to be / When Persephone’s gone
Hades is king of silver and gold / But inside he’s as lonely as anyone else / He has all of the riches his walls can hold / And in spite of it all, he’s a poor boy himself
(Where is the treasure inside of your chest . . . ?)
I loved it, with the exception of the second line Inside he’s as lonely as anyone else. I loved that it was a continuation of Orpheus taking his own experience of love and loss and making of it an empathic connection. I put the entire section in near the end of previews and I honestly couldn’t figure out if it was an improvement. In my heart I loved the brevity and simplicity of it, but many others (including Rachel, some producers, and what probably spoke loudest to me in that particular moment, Team Music) found it much less moving than the old section. In particular, the line He’s a poor boy himself didn’t quite make emotional sense to others. I countered that the line But what he doesn’t know is that what he’s defending / Is already gone had never quite made emotional sense to me!
At this point we were fast approaching the lock date for Broadway. I’ll just say that I changed my mind many, many times, and kept hunting furiously for the one line that could “bring home” the new version. Here were some alternatives for the elusive second line:
~ With his back bent low from the weight of his wealth
~ He is filling a hole that can never be filled
~ And the river of stones and the road to hell / He has set us upon with his wealth and his walls . . .
I was still hunting for the line when I climbed into Mara’s bed in the middle of the night. She woke up, and I went back to work while she, bless her, went to fetch melatonin (a natural sleep aid) for me from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. It didn’t work. When the sky got light and I was still awake, I fled to Brooklyn and told Noah the whole situation. We decided that if for nothing else than the sake of my health, I should let it go. It wasn’t just the three-versus-four-stanza ending of “Epic III” that had to be let go. It was the show itself, and the work that had come to define a third of my life. I cried for hours, and then I fell asleep.
EPIC III INSTRUMENTAL
Hermes
Orpheus was a poor boy
But he had a gift to give
This poor boy brought the world
Back into tune, is what he did
And Hades and Persephone
They took each other’s hands
And, brother, you know what they did?
They danced . . .
Notes on “Epic III Instrumental”
From the earliest days in Vermont, there was an instrumental interlude during the joyful climax of the show called “Lover’s Desire.” It was a traditional Afghan folk tune that Michael Chorney discovered and arranged—a positively uplifting, run-on sentence of a melody, over a single drone chord. Our Vermont productions coincided with the early years of the American war in Afghanistan, which made this jubilant, human, musical expression from that country especially poignant. “Lover’s Desire” appeared on the studio record and in every pre-Broadway production. It was the reason for the old “Epic III” lines A lover’s desire is a mutiny / A lover’s desire is a wilderness. At one point I even attempted to set the melody to words; this was an early idea for an intro to “Wedding Song”:
Orpheus: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for your hand / Your hand for better or worse / Forever / Whether you’re sick or well / For rich or poorer, to have and to hold for as / Long as we both shall live
Eurydice: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for a hand / A hand that’s steady and strong / To lean on / To catch me if I fall / That’s the hand that I’ll have and I’ll hold for as / Long as we both shall live . . .
Those lyrics never saw a production, but the “Lover’s Desire” instrumental remained. For NYTW I wrote a text intro for it, after which it was practically ordained that Hades and Persephone would dance:
Hermes: And one song became two songs / And two songs became three / It ain’t so much that the kingdom fell / It just got swept off its feet / And Hades and Persephone / They took each other’s hands / And brother, you know what they did? They danced . . .
That line And one song became two songs was meant to explain the fact that we were now segueing from the familiarity of “Epic III” into the never-before-heard melody of “Lover’s Desire.” We had Orpheus play the drone chord on his “lyre” (fun facts: in Vermont, Orpheus played a banjo; pre-Broadway, a tenor guitar; and on Broadway, a little arch-top electric). It was essential to me that we understand Orpheus to be directly responsible for the music, the dance, the reconciliation of the gods. But it never quite felt that way; Orpheus seemed to fade from the scene. I began to feel especially troubled by this in London, since I’d gone to great lengths to set up Orpheus’s “gift” as the return of the forgotten music of the gods. I couldn’t help but feel that the gods should be dancing to some version of “their” song. On top of that, our Act II–length woes made me wonder if the introduction of an entirely new musical theme in this moment was further adding to the perception of length. I wanted the dance to exist as an outro to “Epic III”—the final movement of one big number, rather than the beginning of a new one. Some mourned the loss of “Lover’s Desire,” which had undeniable magic. But the trade-off, for me, was the sense that Orpheus had really done what he set out to do. As Hermes puts it: This poor boy brought the world back into tune, is what he did.
PROMISES
Eurydice
Orpheus . . .
Orpheus
Yes?
Eurydice
You finished it . . .
Orpheus
Yes
Now what do I do?
Eurydice
You take me home with you
Let’s go
Let’s go right now
Orpheus
Okay, let’s go—how?
Eurydice
We’ll walk—you know the way
We’ll just go back the way you came
Orpheus
It’s a long road—it’s a long walk
Back into the cold and dark
Are you sure you want to go?
Eurydice
Take me home
Orpheus
I have no ring for your finger
I have no banquet table to lay
I have no bed of feathers
Whatever promises I made
I can’t promise you fair sky above
Can’t promise you kind road below
But I’ll walk beside you, love
Any way the wind blows
Eurydice
I don’t need gold, don’t need silver
Just bread when I’m hungry, fire when I’m cold
I don’t need a ring for my finger
Just need a steady hand to hold
Don’t promise me fair sky above
Don’t promise me kind road below
Just walk beside me, love
Any way the wind blows
Orpheus (indicating Hades)
What about him?
Eurydice
He’ll let us go
Look at him—he can’t say no
Orpheus (indicating Workers)
What about them?
Eurydice
&
nbsp; We’ll show the way
If we can do it, so can they
Eurydice & Orpheus
I don’t know where this road will end
But I’ll walk it with you hand in hand
I can’t promise you fair sky above
Can’t promise you kind road below
But I’ll walk beside you, love
Any way the wind blows
Orpheus
And do you let me walk with you?
Eurydice
I do
Orpheus
I do
Orpheus & Eurydice
I do
Eurydice
And keep on walking come what will?
Orpheus
I will
Eurydice
I will
Orpheus, Eurydice, Workers
We will
Notes on “Promises”
Off-Broadway
When I began working with Rachel, one of the missing story beats we identified was a moment of reckoning and reconciliation for the young lovers in the underworld. This was before I’d written “Come Home with Me Reprise,” so there was essentially no moment of togetherness or communication between them until they were preparing for their final walk. I sat down to imagine what the lovers might say to each other, and came out with this early intro to the song called “Promises”—an intro that only appeared off-Broadway:
Eurydice: Promises you made to me / You said the rivers and the trees / Would fill our pockets and our plates / Promises you made
You said the birds would blanket us / You said the world was generous / And wouldn’t turn its back on us
The river froze, the trees were bare / And all the birds, they disappeared / And so, me too—I flew away / From promises you made
To which Orpheus replied:
Orpheus: Promises you made to me / You said that you would stay with me / Whatever weather came our way / Promises you made
And we would walk side by side / Through all the seasons of our lives / ’Neath any sky / Down any road / Any way the wind blows . . .
Then we launched into the body of the song, which always felt to me like a romantic Irish ballad. The verses have remained unchanged for years, with two tiny exceptions. The initial lines I wrote for Eurydice were: I don’t need gold, don’t need silver / Just keep me warm in your arms when I’m cold but others flagged this as schmaltzily dismissive of the real physical needs that Orpheus had failed to meet aboveground. Similarly, her outro line And keep on walking come what will was originally And try and catch me if I fall, which brought tears to my eyes but painted her again as a bit of a weakling, not what we wanted for our tough heroine.
I’d always intended for “Promises” to come after Epic “III,” as it does in the Broadway version. But there came a moment at NYTW when the tide turned against the song in that spot. There was a sense of frustration with Eurydice, because Orpheus had just done this impossible thing, and here she was complaining about promises he hadn’t kept. In NYTW previews, we moved the song to the spot after “His Kiss, the Riot,” which meant that Hades had already set the terms of their release and the lovers were reckoning and reconciling in anticipation of the walk ahead. Since they now understood that they wouldn’t be walking side by side, I changed the chorus from But I’ll walk beside you, love to But I’ll walk with you, my love. To make the transition work, I wrote this last-minute “intro to the intro” of “Promises”:
Hermes: Here’s what Mister Hades said: He said he’d let you go
Orpheus: He did?
Eurydice: He did?
Hermes: He did . . . There’s one thing, though / You have to walk
Orpheus: We can walk / We can walk, I know the way
Eurydice: You do?
Orpheus: That’s how I got here / We’ll go back the way I came
Hermes: Alright, alright, but here’s the thing / It ain’t easy walking, jack / He said you have to walk in front / And she has to walk in back / And if you turn to look at her, to make sure she’s coming too / Then she goes back to Hadestown, and ain’t nothing you can do / You’ll have to trust each other / You’ll have to have no doubt / So if y’all got something to say to each other / Say it now . . .
Orpheus: Eurydice . . .
Eurydice: Orpheus . . .
Orpheus: I know the way / I promise
(Eurydice: Promises you made to me . . .)
The situation was similar to the “Any Way the Wind Blows” crisis off-Broadway. I didn’t feel right about moving the song, which I’d intended for another spot, but it was either that or cut the song in its entirety, which would have left a gaping hole in the story of our young lovers. It was another rethink I didn’t have time for until Edmonton.
Edmonton
As soon as we started planning for the Citadel production, I put the song back in the old spot, and tried to figure out a way for it to earn its keep. The Promises you made to me intro that had sparked the whole number had to go, as much as I loved the parallel imagery with “Wedding Song.” We needed Eurydice fully on board with Orpheus—in fact, I became enthusiastic about the idea of Eurydice, rather than Orpheus, instigating their escape. I’m embarrassed by the Edmonton version of the intro scene, but here it is:
Eurydice: Take me home
Orpheus: Are you sure? / It’s in the middle of nowhere
Eurydice: Spring is coming
Orpheus: Who says?
Eurydice: You / Everything you said was true
Orpheus: Not everything . . . / I said the wind would never change / But I can’t promise that it won’t
Eurydice: Then don’t / Just take me home
(Orpheus: I have no ring for your finger . . .)
In the Edmonton interlude, the roles were reversed:
Orpheus: Let’s go—let’s go right now
Eurydice: Okay, let’s go—How?
Orpheus: We’ll walk—I know the way / We’ll just go back the way I came
Eurydice: What about him?
Orpheus: He’ll let us go / Look at him / He can’t say no
Eurydice: And if he does?
Orpheus: He won’t / I’m not going back alone
London & Broadway
For London, I made Eurydice the instigator of both intro and interlude, and added that gesture toward the Workers: What about them? This was something Rachel had always craved: some way to tie this moment of romantic commitment to a broader societal commitment. For Broadway, I went full circle and brought the It isn’t finished yet motif to a close with Eurydice’s You finished it! I had no idea that Orpheus’s Now what do I do? would be funny. That’s how it is with me and humor—often a joke I think will land never does, and a line written in seriousness turns out to be hilarious.
WORD TO THE WISE
Hermes
And so the poor boy asked the king
Orpheus
Can we go?
Hermes
And this is how he answered him
Hades
I don’t know
Fates
Gotta think quick
Gotta save face
Caught ’tween a rock and a hard place
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do now?
If you tell ’em no, oh, you’re a heartless man
And you’re gonna have a martyr on your hands
If you let ’em go, oh, you’re a spineless king
And you’re never gonna get ’em in line again
Damned if you don’t
Damned if you do
> Whole damn-nation’s watching you
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do now?
Here’s a little tip
Word to the wise
Here’s a little snippet of advice
Men are fools
Men are frail
Give them the rope and they’ll hang themselves
Notes on “Word to the Wise”
I wrote “Word to the Wise” for a workshop in advance of NYTW in hopes of inserting some up-tempo levity into Act II. It was a satisfying turning-of-the-tables for the Fates to plague Hades the same way they’d plagued Eurydice throughout the show. And it gave Hades a lot to chew on in “His Kiss, the Riot.” Early workshop versions had this extra verse:
Fates: Hey / Hey / Hey / It’s judgment day! / Are you gonna let ’em just walk away? / What you gonna do . . . ?
There was something about that Are you gonna let ’em just walk away? that reminded me of the Spice Girls’ I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want and I remember asking our workshop Fates to go full-Spice with it. The result was hilarious and terrible; I recanted right away. Ultimately, I cut the verse to keep Act II moving.
Working on a Song Page 15
