Patrick Page Gives ‘Em Hell in Hadestown: The Musical

When Hadestown: The Musical arrives in movie theaters for a special 5-day engagement on July 24, audiences will be able to experience one of Broadway’s most acclaimed productions on the big screen. Anaïs Mitchell‘s Tony-winning musical reimagines the Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice, Hades and Persephone through a stirring blend of folk, blues and New Orleans-inspired jazz, exploring love, power, sacrifice and hope. At the center of the story is Hades, the formidable ruler of the Underworld, played by Tony-Award nominee Patrick Page, whose commanding performance has become one of the show’s defining elements. A resident actor at Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre Company from 1992 to 1995, Page has spent decades mastering Shakespeare and Broadway, as well as playing The Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark — opposite Hadestown’s own Orpheus, Reeve Carney, as Peter Parker.

“The Marvel and the DC people have figured out that what the mythmakers did was ask the great, big, attractive questions that no one could really answer,” Page says, drawing a parallel between comic book superheroes and the legendary characters of Greek mythology who are making a resurgence thanks to both Hadestown and Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster take on The Odyssey. “The questions themselves were worth our time and attention, and our return,” Page says.  “Because as Hermes says, ‘we’re gonna sing it again and again.’ Why would you sing something again that you have the answer to? You sing it again because you hope to get a little closer to understanding.” Page has had the chance to sing one of the musical’s most unforgettable songs, Why We Build the Wall, again and again, and on many stages, and he can’t get enough of it. While the song has become increasingly associated with contemporary politics, Page insists that its meaning reaches far beyond any one administration or ideology.

“I’ve said this before and I’ll say it without any exaggeration on my part: I believe Why We Build the Wall is one of the great folk songs ever written,” Page says. “It far transcends its place in the musical.” Page says that Mitchell wrote the song in roughly half an hour as it came to her in one big burst of inspiration.

“It was given to Anaïs as a gift,” Page says. “It would have to come to the artist whole because of the circular thinking. When you begin the song, you have to know where it ends up, so you can’t begin writing it. The idea comes as a whole idea, as a circle. And of course, the song is written as a circle. The form of the lyric mirrors the nature of the logic. We build the wall because we build the wall. The wall is what we build. That core notion — which is so profound in terms of how we have organized our society around the corporate and military industrial complex — that I think the song far transcends its place in the musical, and is just one of the greatest folk songs of all time, like Which Side Are You On? or If I Had A Hammer.”

Page notes that the song had had a different reception depending on the time and place. “I sang it first in 2016, when Donald Trump had just come down the escalator, and was something of a joke,” Page says. “And what we were saying at the time, those of us who wanted a Democrat to win the presidency were: pray for Donald Trump to be the candidate because he’s buffoon and will beat him easily. Well, of course, I was shown how foolish that idea was.”  Page says he then sang the song in Canada the following year, and the reaction was more detached.

“They were thinking of it as a song about somebody else, someone far away, those strange Americans who might build a wall,” Page recalls. “Then I sang it in London during Brexit, and it had a different meaning when we came back to the wall to occur.” Page notes that the song has energized American audiences, but he’s also seen audience members walk out during the number, offended by what they perceive as an attack on their political beliefs and their chosen leader. 

“I always wanted to shout after them and say ‘I’m not singing about your boy. I’m singing about something much bigger than that!'” Page says, emphatically stating that song is about the human tendency to erect barriers that divide each other, and the opportunity to convey that message, times being as they are, has been one that Page has enthusiastically embraced. “That’s the kind of blessing you get once in your life as a performer, and I feel lucky to have been the one who got to say those words,” Page says.

As Hadestown: The Musical makes the leap from the Broadway stage to movie theaters, Page hopes that new audiences will discover what theatergoers have embraced for years: a rousing musical performance, and a myth that remains startlingly relevant because its timeless questions reveal constantly relevant answers. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film interviews and features by Patrick Gibbs:
Clayne Crawford Shares The Secrets of The Agency
Jeff Russo Boldly Brings New Life To Television Through Music

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