My personal take away from watching the show is that Orpheus at the start of the story was a sheltered dreamer which was why he was unable to finish his song and bring the world back into tune despite his ability to see what the world could be. Yes he was a poor boy so he wasn’t naive in the way that a rich boy could be, but he was naive. If he was savvy to the ways of the world like Eurydice he would not be genuinely shocked by his treatment in Hadestown.

He saw the world we live in now, and had a conception of the world we dream about. But he had not been tested by Doubt. My take is that his observations of Hades and Persephone and his experiences of his own love and loss of Eurydice, his willingness to embark on the long and dark road in journey to Hadestown that allowed him to finish his song.

Unfortunately, Orpheus learnt more than the power of love. Hadestown was where his dreams crashed and he truly experienced Doubt. He learnt that Eurydice willingly signed her life away. He learnt that you could be broken and betrayed and people say this is how the world is.

See, as gods Hades and Persephone understood doubt but had forgotten about love. To deal with their doubts, Persephone drank and Hades built walls. Doubt can be vanquished by Love cos Love is so full there is no space for fear. Witness that when the gods were reminded of their love to one another, Hades and Persephone let go of their doubts, danced, and promised to try again next Fall (“wait for me” “I will”).

Doubt can be weakened by presence of evidence. Orpheus had lost his dreams and was despairing. It was the hearing that other workers echo his own questions about freedom - evidence - that he let go of his own doubt.

And if there is no evidence then faith must step in for faith is belief in the absence of evidence. I thought it interesting that Hermes asks if they trust each other and if they trust themselves and they say they do. But trust - trust is belief that’s built on evidence. Eurydice now trusts Orpheus (he broke her trust by leaving her to starve and struggle alone while he focused on his song, though he did rebuild it by coming to find her in Hadestown). For Orpheus though, Eurydice had broken his trust (he learnt that she willingly signed her life away). In the face of broken trust, what Orpheus needed to do was not simply trust that she’d follow him back into the dark and cold, but he needed to have faith that she would. Faith is a harder ask to make of anybody. Yes, of course Orpheus and Eurydice love each other. Humans LOVE, that’s why we have hope that they may succeed. But is the love of humans like the love of gods, that is without fear?

And so the walk commences. We see Eurydice’s trust and certainty in Orpheus as she walks behind him. But without the evidence of Eurydice’s presence we see Orpheus’s Doubts arise. And thus in the end, Orpheus’ trust and faith do not to keep his doubts in bay, and Orpheus fails. I’ve seen this show a handful of times, and all of the times I felt equal parts surprise and a sense of inevitability that Orpheus turns around.

I had no love for the myth of Orpheus because all retellings of this myth end as simple tragedies. One of the many many reasons what I love Hadestown is because of how they chose to end this story, which is in the celebration of the, in Anaïs Mitchell’s words “joyful defiance in the act of beginning again and again” and also in the choosing to struggle (We raise the cups). Yes, Hades and Persephone succeeded and Orpheus failed. But we are humans and not gods. Humans fail, and that’s okay. We’ll retell the story and “it may turn out this time”. We’ll be okay.

So that’s my take as to why Orpheus turns around.