How Capitalism is Tainting the Integrity of Casting in Hadestown
The producers of Hadestown have announced that Grammy-award winner Ani DiFranco will replace Australian-American musician Betty Who as Persephone in Hadestown in February. While white women who have had to scrub their MySpace pages in the early 2000s rejoice, I can't help but think, "Why don't I recognize the musical that inspired me anymore?"
Hadestown retells the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the musician who ventures into the Underworld to retrieve teh love of his life. This production borrows a lot from the aesthetic of the American Industrial Revolution, New Orleans jazz, and folk music to tell this story.
Hadestown has a more challenging time trapping the much-needed tourist revenue than the established blockbuster musicals like Wicked or new musicals based on popular source material like (gag) Back to the Future. The producing team has turned to an old Broadway tradition, stunt casting, to keep the doors open. Lord knows it's been working for Chicago. Like all stunt casting, the goal is to attract as many people as possible. However, the casting choices imply that not all patrons' support is viewed equally.
The pattern of casting Ani DiFranco after Betty Who tells me that the team of Hadestown is seeking an increase in a specific audience demographic: white women who were old enough to prove their progressivism by voting for Obama the first time. No one's fan base is a monolith, but I know my mama wasn't blasting Ani DiFranco in my house. While I will never fault someone for trying to get their coin, there's something slightly insidious about the persistent casting of white women to play Persephone opposite Black Hades, Philip Boykin. In the Greek myth, Hades kidnaps Persephone and essentially tricks her into being his "bride (there are definitely implications of a nonconsensual union) for eternity—the Southern Industrial-inspired setting of the musical places the piece in conversation with the Antebellum South. When paired with a Black Persephone, the musical can be interpreted as a narrative in which a Black man so hungry for financial success subjugates his people, including his wife. However, when paired with a white Persephone, the plot is...not unlike the fears perpetuated by the Klu Klux Klan propaganda film The Birth of a Nation.
I understand that Ani DiFranco is not only a personal hero and inspiration to Hadestown composer Anais Mitchell but also the originator of the role of Persephone on the 2010 concept album. However, the perceptions shift when performance introduces the politics of the body in space. Once onstage, you have to consider the semiotics of gender, body type, and, especially in this case, race. I don't think that the producers chose these casting options with malintnent. Still, they caused me to infer that the team of Hadestown prioritizes the patronage of older white women over the damage that can be done to audiences of color. Unfortunately, we work in an industry where that choice must be made.
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