Hadestown is a musical adaptation of the greek tradgedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. Originally written as a concept album folk opera in 2006 by Anaïs Mitchell, Micheal Chorney and Ben T. Matchstick, it's developed significantly over the years. Set in an extratemporal but distinctly depression-era esque time period, it follows Eurydice, a starving, world-weary young girl and Orpheus, a poor but naive and spritely boy, their blossoming love and it's tragic ending.

Hadestown may genuinely be one of my favourite musicals of all time. Anais Mitchell is a phenomenal writer, the way they've adapted the mythology to the current day is borderline clairvoyant.. In the same way that ancient Greeks used the story of Hades and Persephone to explain the changing seasons, she builds on this tradition to draw parallels to global warming through their crumbling relationship.

"Lover what have you become? / Coal cars and oil drums / Warehouse walls and factory floors / I don't know you anymore / In the meantine up above / The harvest dies and people starve / Oceans rise and overflow / It ain't right and it ain't natural.

Persephone is miserable in the underworld, she is appaulled with the lengths Hades is willing to go to keep her down there. Hades decks the city in neon lights and boils it in hellish fire in an uncanny imitation of Persephone's home and the summertime she brings. Meanwhile her real home is entrenched in an insaciable winter. Eurydice, starving to death in the cold, sells her soul to Hades in order to get work in the underworld. End of Act 1.