Working on a Song
Page 18
Where the green grass grows
Company
Our praise is not for them
Persephone & Eurydice
But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow
Company
We raise our cups to them
We raise our cups and drink them up
Persephone
We raise them high and drink them dry
Company
To Orpheus, and all of us
Persephone
Good night, brothers, good night
Notes on “We Raise Our Cups”
I tried to cut “We Raise Our Cups” from Hadestown in every single production we did post-NYTW. In fact, we went through the one-night-only experiment of performing the show without it during previews at the Citadel, the National, and even the Walter Kerr. In Edmonton, where “Road to Hell Reprise” became the show’s final song, “We Raise Our Cups” became an encore. I went back and forth about whether an encore was a lovely musical gesture or an unwelcome act of lily-gilding. I wasn’t the only one; various creative and producing team members wondered if we’d be better off without it at different times. Rachel alone was always firmly on Team Cup. She felt that the audience needed a final moment together, with the Company, to fully process the end of the show. And especially on Broadway, our preview experiment seemed to bear that out. It’s possible that the crowd that night was full of folks familiar with the song from previous iterations, but in any case, there was palpable disappointment when it never came. I even got an e-mail from Jim Nicola (of NYTW) the next day—he’d heard a rumor that I’d cut the song, and made an impassioned plea for it to stay. “It’s already back,” I assured him.
The song speaks of something not unrelated to this book. We raise our cups to Orpheus not because he succeeds, but because he tries. We understand implicitly that there’s value in his trying and even in his failure. The act of writing, for me, has most often been a process of failing repeatedly. It’s the only way I know how to write! And in the moment of “failure,” at the desk, banging one’s “head against a wall,” it’s nearly impossible to see or feel the value in it.
But when I step back, I see a different picture. I know that Hadestown is—and this goes for any creative endeavor, I reckon—so much more than what meets the eye or the ear. What is seen and heard onstage is the blooming flower, but most of the plant is underground. Every line, verse, or chorus—every idea any of us who worked on it ever had, even the ones that never saw the light of day—they’re down there. They’re the roots of the plant, and the flower wouldn’t exist without them. The ones who bloom in the bitter snow bloom because they are supported from below by a thousand tries and failures. Here’s one last example of that.
I wrote the text for “We Raise Our Cups” for the studio album in 2010. It changed only slightly over the years, from first person singular to plural. The music, though, dates much further back; our very first Vermont production of Hadestown ended with a song called “Cloud Machine,” which had similar music but entirely different lyrics:
Orpheus: What have I done? Mother, what have I done? / Squandered the gift that you gave me / Gambled with Hades and Hades won / And there’s no song now can save me
Mother, I failed! Oh, Mother, I tried / And I fell like a fool would fall / And I left my love / On the other side / On the other side of the wall
(alt. There’s a crack in the wall / It’s a little bit wider / It’s a little bit wider, that’s all)
Persephone: Come, my son, don’t take it so hard / Everything is forgiven / You have done naught / But to play out the part / That the Fates in their wisdom have written
Orpheus: Raise up the curtain! The crowd goes wild! / The Fates are drunken clowns / All of us dreamers are walking the wire / While they juggle our dreams around
Apollo, come down in your cloud machine / Apollo, come swallowing fire / With your thunder and lightning and kerosene / For the Fates and their funeral pyre
Persephone: Come, my son, we try and we fail / Every tale has an end
But the pale dawn breaks / And the snake eats its tail / And the tale begins again . . .
I’m a little embarrassed by those lyrics, and confused as to why Persephone appears to be standing in for Orpheus’s mom.
But I’m utterly fascinated by that last line—a line that appeared in 2006, disappeared for ten years, and was reborn in 2016 in “Road to Hell” as a central theme of the show. The seed lay underground for a decade, and when the conditions were right . . . it bloomed again.
Keep trying.
Vermont cast of Hadestown, 2007. Clockwise from left: Miriam Bernardo (Persephone); Sarah-Dawn Albani, Nessa Rabin, Lisa Raatikainan (Fates); Sara Grace (Cerberus); Cavan Meese, Noah Book, Noah Hahn, Erik Weil, Aliza LaPaglia (Workers); Ben t. Matchstick (Hermes); Ben Campbell (Orpheus); Anaïs Mitchell (Eurydice); David Symons (Hades).
Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
Hadestown poster, Vermont, 2006.
Art/Design: Brian Grunert and Tim Staszak for White Bicycle
“Eurydice” linocut from the Hadestown studio album, 2010.
Art: Peter Nevins
Early attempts at “Epic” verses, circa 2007.
“America Sings Hadestown” poster, 2011. This was a final “roundup” of American concert versions of Hadestown featuring special guests from around the country.
Art/Design: Peter Nevins
New York Theatre Workshop, 2016. Left to right: Shaina Taub, Lulu Fall, Jessie Shelton (Fates); Nabiyah Be (Eurydice); Chris Sullivan (Hermes).
Photo: Joan Marcus
The Citadel, Edmonton, 2018. Left to right: Evangelia Kambites, Kira Guloien, Jewelle Blackman (Fates).
Photo: David Cooper
With Rachel Chavkin in a Midtown public park.
Photo: Tess Mayer for The Interval
“Our Lady of the Underground” at the National Theatre, London, 2018. Front: Amber Gray (Persephone). Back, left to right: Sharif Afifi, Shaq Taylor, Jordan Shaw, Aiesha Pease, Seyi Omooba, Joseph Prouse, [not pictured: Beth Hinton-Lever] (Workers).
Photo: Helen Maybanks
Walter Kerr Theatre, Broadway, 2019. Left to right: Eva Noblezada (Eurydice), André De Shields (Hermes), Reeve Carney (Orpheus). Balcony: Patrick Page (Hades), Amber Gray (Persephone).
Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade
Text exchange with Noah, 2019.
Official Broadway Cast Recording session, DiMenna Center, 2019. Front row, left to right: Ken Cerniglia, Michael Chorney, Anaïs Mitchell, Dale Franzen, Todd Sickafoose, Rachel Chavkin, Amber Gray, Afra Hines, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer, Kay Trinidad, Khaila Wilcoxon. Second row, left to right: David Lai, Beverly Jenkins, Dana Lyn, Marika Hughes, Ben Perowsky, Brian Drye, Cody Owen Stine, Patrick Page, Eva Noblezada, André De Shields, Ahmad Simmons, John Krause, T. Oliver Reid, Jessie Shelton, Mara Isaacs. Third row, left to right: Isaiah Abolin, Robinson Morse, Reeve Carney, Timothy Hughes, Malcolm Armwood, Kimberly Marable, Jewelle Blackman, Liam Robinson.
Photo: Courtesy of Hadestown Broadway LLC
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Huge thanks to Rachel Chavkin, Ken Cerniglia, Mara Isaacs, John Parsley, Liz Riches, and Don Mitchell for helping me navigate this rabbit hole of memories! And for making the time and space for me to go down it, forever love to Noah, Ramona, and Rosetta. xoa
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anaïs Mitchell is a singer-songwriter who comes from the world of narrative folksong, poetry, and balladry. Among her recorded works are six full-length albums including the original studio album of Hadestown (2010, featuring Justin Vernon and Ani DiFranco); Young Man in America (2012); and Bonny Light Horseman (2020, with folk band Bonny Light Horseman). Mitchell has headlined conce
rts around the world. Awards include a Tony Award for Best Score for Hadestown. Her albums have been featured in year-end best lists including NPR, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, and Sunday Times. Hadestown is Mitchell’s first musical.
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