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[0:00] Patrick Page: My name is Patrick Page and you're listening to Eleven, the official theatre podcast.

[0:16] William J Connolly: Hello and welcome to Eleven, the official theatre podcast that brings the biggest stars and creatives together in one place to discuss life in the arts. He's the Grammy winner and Tony nominee who's established himself as one of the finest of his generation thanks to his remarkable stage talents and instantly recognisable voice. And now, this October, he's heading way down under once again to deliver us the ultimate Hadestown gift as his performance as Hades in the Anaïs Mitchell-penned musical comes to the big screen for audiences across the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. So to mark the occasion and the start of these exclusive cinema showings, we explore the joys of Hadestown and his favourite memories from developing the now Tony-winning musical, including its rather special time at the National Theatre in London back in 2018, its journey from New York Theatre Workshop to Broadway and now the big screen, and why he continues to see the show as a developing and growing piece of art.

Plus, the evolution of the political references in the musical, his thrill at observing his cast during the first 20 minutes of the show, and why his co-star Amber Gray remains forever his North Star. We also talk about audience members walking out, his now-iconic 'I missed ya' line delivery, and why it's nothing but a dream come true for this stage legend to return to the world of Hadestown for this live cinema capture. It's the iconic Patrick Page here now on this, the next episode of Eleven, the official theatre podcast.

[1:58] William J Connolly: Please let me welcome to this the next episode of Eleven. He is the Grammy winner and Tony nominee with one of the most instantly recognisable voices that helps transport audiences lucky enough to be in his presence to a different world inside the walls of many rather great theatres, and now we can all get our fix of him and his definitive performance as Hades, thanks to the release of the live capture of Hadestown for the big screen. And I'm honoured to say that the man from way down under is here to celebrate a new life for the oh so perfect musical. So I say hello Patrick Page, does being lost in the musical world of Anaïs Mitchell ever stop being this freaking cool?

[2:35] Patrick Page: Not in my experience, it's just wonderful to be part of it. It's the coolest show, it's the coolest world, and may I say it's the coolest part for you to get to play, and I know that you have a lot of love and care for this part. This is a part that you helped develop and originate and bring to the world, and it has gone around the world now, such as the success of Hadestown. Just before we talk specifically about this extraordinary live cinema capture and the fact that we get to experience this world in a very new way, how do you feel about the world of Hadestown? Now you've had a little bit of an opportunity to take a pause from it and to step away and perhaps realise just monumentally fresh and special it is. How do you feel about it today?

[3:11] Patrick Page: It's so wonderful that you would ask that. I was on a long drive with my wife yesterday and somehow it came up, the very many iterations of the play we've been through. I came across a photograph of Amber Gray with the workers in Our Lady of the Underground, and it's a wonderful photo. I'll post it on Instagram. But when we were at the National Theatre in 2018, we did a version of the play in which the workers' chorus were involved with the opening of the second act, which was Our Lady of the Underground. And it makes perfect sense in terms of narrative that Persephone would try to enlist the workers and undermine Hades, but in practice it didn't work at all. It just looked silly. And it made me think of how many things like that I've been through since opening the show at New York Theatre Workshop, Off-Broadway in New York in 2016, and then doing it again in Canada in 2017, and then of course at the National Theatre, and then on Broadway, and then finally in the West End with the ProShot, and each time just these minor, wonderful revisions and improvements.

And it made me think, when I was watching the film, I saw it just once at its opening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and every moment of the musical seemed intentional to me. There seemed to be nothing that wasn't on purpose, and it was just like a beautiful piece of Swiss watchmaking or something, you know? It's just marvelous to watch from the outside, because of course I've been a part of it and not been able to see it. So yeah, I really resonate with what you're saying right now.

[5:21] William J Connolly: It's so interesting that you mention the National Theatre production, because I was one of the very few people that had the real honour of getting to sit inside the Olivier and get to experience what was a brand new musical at this point. It was this kind of definitive iteration that we've now come to know and love, but it was so extraordinary to witness something that felt like it kind of created a new chapter for the type of stories that we could tell on stage. It felt so fresh and new from this extraordinary creative team. And actually, that is one thing that did bring me back to then subsequently come and see you and your extraordinary colleagues on Broadway, was the fact that it did feel like you weren't delivering the traditional musical form, but actually you were trying to tell a different story and ask audiences to feel something different.

It's this beautiful poetry of romance and politics, and actually the suggestion of what would you genuinely do in the situation of these principal characters? And dare I say also, these other characters, particularly with Hades, which is like, what would you do if you were in his situation with what he's presented with? And I imagine for you, that means that while it is, of course, a very similar show every night, it's never quite the same show because you know that the audience's positioning on it is different every night. What was it like when you first did take it to Broadway back in that period when politically and perhaps where we are as a society was very different to where the audience is going to meet it for this film release?

[6:41] Patrick Page: It's evolved from the very first time I did it. You know, I sing this song, which I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with, called Why We Build the Wall, and that show was written 10 years, about 10 years before we first performed it, I think in 2016. It was one of the first things, it was the first song I ever sang with Anaïs Mitchell. We did a little concert at Lincoln Center before we were even in rehearsal at New York Theatre Workshop, and I thought of it as a kind of a perfect folk song in its singularity because it ends where it begins. It circles around itself, and so you sort of, it has to come to the composer as a whole, really. You have to know where it ends in order to begin it, and it was just a beautiful, beautiful metaphor, I thought.

And then when we were in rehearsal for it at New York Theatre Workshop, Donald Trump emerged as a political candidate in America, and at first it was something of a lark. You know, he didn't seem like a serious person or a serious candidate, and his campaign was built around this obviously reactionary idea of building a big wall around the country. And all of a sudden, this song, which had been a metaphor, was literalized, and people began to respond to it differently. At first, everyone was like I was, which is, this isn't too much of a threat, this is kind of a joke, these people want to do this sort of wall building, they're not to be taken terribly seriously. And then of course it won the presidency, and so the next time I sang it, which was in Canada, it had become a real thing, and this wall was beginning to be built, but that was Canada, and it hadn't yet begun to affect them.

I have a feeling they'd feel differently now. And then I sang it in London, and it was a time when you all were going through Brexit, and it had that kind of resonance to it. But it wasn't really until I got into the Broadway production, began to sing it, that I felt the audience thought the song was about the one thing, that it was a song written to address this particular political moment, which it wasn't. And occasionally I would see people walk out during the song, and I always wanted to shout after them, I'm not singing about your boy, I'm singing about the phenomenon of trying to divide people. Yes, it's been an extraordinary journey with that song, and with the themes of the show as a whole.

[9:39] Patrick Page: One of the great geniuses of this work, apart from the fact it is such a musical masterpiece, and does allow audiences to experience so many different feelings, is that there's also a great sense of you're sitting in this world, being submerged in it, and feeling for these characters, and then it all comes in those sort of latter sort of 10 to 15 minutes, where you feel this great sense of desperation as an audience, to hope that they might be able to achieve what they are trying to do. And actually you also do do that in the back of your mind, thinking that you understand where Hades is coming from, where Persephone is coming from, where this extraordinary narrator is also leading as well, and it's interesting as an audience how many different things you feel.

And you do spend the first, I think it's probably like 10 to 15 minutes of the show, as a voyeur to this story at the top of that set. Do you get to feel the sorts of things that we as an audience are feeling, and what's it like to actually be situated on stage watching your co-stars, bringing a story to life that you're about to, I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but he's gonna cause some problems.

[10:36] Patrick Page: Yeah, well you're absolutely right about it changing every night, not merely because of the audience, but because we were able to create the show with these five extraordinary, well I'll accept myself, four extraordinary principal actors who are playing in the moment, and so it's never exactly the same. People ask me when they see the film of the show, well they say well you must have accommodated for the camera, the things that are happening in close-up, these must not have happened on stage, because we wouldn't have been able to see them, the micro expressions and everything that's going on between the people. I said no, this always went on on stage, those were our performances, the only difference is you've got a camera close up so that you can see them, and I get to spend the first 20 minutes of the play just observing from the balcony and seeing the audience and seeing them come in.

It's really been interesting too, that process over the years, because at first audiences were coming in naive, not knowing what they were expecting. Now they come in with anticipation that they are going to see something remarkable, because they've heard that it is, or many times they're coming in having seen the show frequently before, and so they have an appetite for individual moments and things that they love about it. Yeah, that's an extraordinary process to be part of, and to feel that you're in something that's constantly, that's living, that's not set. I've done a number of long runs of musicals, and the danger of a long run of a musical is the feeling that something is set, that you're recreating something that was created in rehearsal, but is no longer a living thing, and I work very hard to make sure that that doesn't happen to me, but it is a real danger, and I think the way that Rachel Chavkin crafted this show is so that that has the best chance of not happening.

[12:57] Patrick Page: And I do think that you're absolutely correct in the way in which it is a living thing, because we've seen not just different types of people playing these respective roles through the years, but also different genders, we've also seen people from different backgrounds, and also I know that...

[14:09] Patrick Page: So to actually have the opportunity to do that with this film is incredible. And of course, the story of Hadestown, the way Anaïs has written it, that idea is written right in, the idea of we're going to sing it again. We sang it last night. It didn't work out the way we wanted to. He turned around. We'll sing it again tonight, and maybe he won't turn around tonight, and we'll sing it again. And every night we have to go out there with the idea that tonight somehow we will all focus in such a way that he'll make it up and not turn around. And I do think it's, you mentioned how you can identify with Hades and Persephone and with Orpheus and Eurydice. I think that's such an extraordinary accomplishment on Anaïs's part and on Rachel's part.

It would have been so easy to write the character of Hades as a kind of straw man to represent, you know, rapacious capitalism and to just bring him down. And the fact that they imbued him with so much humanity and made this love story of not just the younger couple, but the older couple regaining their love. And it's so generous in that way toward people who've taken perhaps the wrong road in their lives and placed value on the wrong things or on things that aren't ultimately going to bring them happiness and aren't going to bring the world into a better place. It's so generous towards them in the idea that these are also people who are making the best choices they know how to make at the time and then can become trapped by their circumstances as Hades does.

And also he doesn't see them as bad choices. He sees them as the right choices for him. He doesn't see his place as being sort of on the badder side of the story that we're trying to tell. He sees it as the right decision. And actually I think why the second act works so well is it's like the decisions that he makes is saying, if you want it, you have to work for it and fight hard enough for it. And I do think there's a sense of endearment as an audience where you go, well, you would almost struggle if you want something that much and you love her that much, then now's the time to show it. And it's an interesting juxtaposition as an audience to go, but I really care for them, but actually this is the gauntlet that's been set. So let's go and let's make it happen. And it's just such fantastic writing. It's so fantastic.

[17:00] Patrick Page: And you're an actor quite wonderful because I can look at the role Hades has been given. When the universe was split up, he got the underworld and one of his brothers got the heavens and one of his brothers got the seas. And he does the best with what he can and he's got a job to do and that's his function and he's doing it as well as he can. And when you look at it, you really think, well, where really could he have made better choices? And he did as well as he could. And when he gives that test to Orpheus, it seems to me that it's very much, it's generous in its own way, which is that I will actually give you this opportunity and it is possible. But the thing that I know about this particular test is that I could not pass it.

Now, if he can, he deserves to go. But if he deserves to go, then the whole wall comes tumbling down. There is no more system. There is no more wall if he can do that. And the poem of the play, and Anaïs was insistent the entire time as we were working it, it grew from really just an album, a series of songs. We did not have a narrative structure when we began. And in fact, we did not know if it would support a narrative structure or if it wanted a narrative structure. When we first did it in New York Theatre Workshop, we had handheld mics. There was a set list at first that was given to the audience, as you would get if you were going to a concert. Our Lady of the Underground, which is the top of the second act, was just a kind of untrapped.

It had no narrative function whatsoever. It was an invitation of the audience back into the room after intermission. There was no workers' chorus yet. It did not open with the songs that it opens now, with The Road to Hell. It did not open with that introduction of the characters in that way. It opened with, anyway, The Wind Blows, with The Fates. So it was a very, very different kind of entertainment. But it was a poem, right? And a poem doesn't necessarily have to be narrative. A poem can be narrative. There can be narrative poems where each thing leads to the next in a cause-and-effect sort of way. But a poem can also be more abstract than that. And we were never sure what this wanted to be.

And we're very much searching for it without trying to force it into any given structure. And over time, it revealed itself as a narrative. And the character of Hermes became more and more of a storyteller, became more and more of a mentor, Orpheus, to guide him along the way. A mentor who knew the story, knew how it would end, and yet was going to tell it again. But the idea that it was a poem she held on to, and every time it began to stray from that, it began to lose its poetic footing, she would pull it back. That was her, it seems to me, that was her North Star. And that was very useful. Because you had a great many other people whose business was storytelling. They were storytellers. And Anaïs Mitchell was a poet and a songwriter, and a musician.

And those are very different things that overlap, but are not the same. And so for those people to collaborate, to create a narrative event that is nevertheless still a poem, I think was a real miracle of collaboration.

[21:16] Patrick Page: One of the very many parts of Hadestown that has become truly iconic comes from your very mouth, and the way in which that rather extraordinary voice says the lyrics, I missed you. At what point did you realize that that particular moment and the way in which you presented that was, and becoming, not just an online fan moment, but people would sit in a theater and understand so much about him, based on these three words and the way in which you and that rather special voice that you have chose to deliver? And when did you realize, I think this might be actually quite a defining moment in the storytelling, and it's the first things that you say in the show? I don't know if I had a moment when I thought or realized that.

For me, there's so much of the relationship in the line. It's interesting, when we went back to do it in London, and I hadn't done it for however long, over a year, a couple of years, whatever, and had to learn it again, and they gave a script again. And I got the script, and I looked at it, and I saw what the line is and was when I got it, which is, I missed you, Y-O-U, period. And I remember thinking there was something that just didn't sit right with me about that, and it just kind of became this thing, which I guess no one ever then inscribed in the script. I guess my instinct was that it's such a huge event for him. It's what he's been waiting for, dreaming about, thinking up, fantasizing, can't wait for, marking days off the calendar that a man like him would in some way try to minimize it.

Life is no big deal. And yet within that, you would know, you would feel the longing, and you would feel the love, and you would feel the sex. You would feel the heat between them. And you know, I just, speaking of Anaïs's North Star, my North Star was always Amber Gray, because we just got to do it together the whole time. When we were at New York Theatre Workshop, she was, well, at first she was pregnant. I remember dancing with her when she was pregnant. Then I remember when we would be in the rehearsal room, and she was pumping, because she was nursing at the time. So every time she was off stage, she was pumping for milk. And at the same time, I remember, it was just a marvelous memory that it was springtime, and just outside the window there at downtown in New York, in the village, there was a nest of turtle doves that were having their babies.

And while we were there, every day I would go, and eventually the eggs hatched, and the little baby birds were born, and then eventually they left the nest at about the same time we did. And I just, that was so magical for me. And the fact that Amber was bringing life into the world, and these birds were bringing life into the world, and we were bringing this new musical life into the world. And so there's something about, I watched that recently, someone posted that moment online, the I Missed You moment. And I say, I missed you. Then the shot goes to Amber. And you realize that that moment is much less about that line than people think it is. It's about Amber's reaction to that line. Because up to that moment, she's, you know, she's like, oh, that wasn't six months.

I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back. And then Hades says, I missed you. And you just see this little girl, you see this, you know, you see this sexy woman, you just, she becomes this thing in that moment. Boom. And it's like, that's, that's what sells the moment, I think.

[25:35] William J Connolly: The entire show is incredibly beautiful. There are so many signature iconic moments, and I'm so grateful to get the opportunity to go to all of those with you. So thank you so much for talking to me today. And most importantly, congratulations on this very beautiful live capture movie. It's so special to have to get to relive the show and more importantly, you and your extraordinary co-stars' performances. So congratulations. And thank you so much again. I do genuinely really appreciate it.

[26:00] William J Connolly: You've been listening to Eleven, the official theatre podcast. Find out more about Eleven at elevenpodcast.com or via the Broadway Podcast Network.