Singing the Old Songs Again: 4 Myth-Inspired Plays You Should Read

We are always taking inspiration from the art that came before us. It becomes part of our language before we’re even aware of it. Our tongues click through the words of Shakespeare without even thinking about it, and we dream in the visuals of film.

It makes sense, then, that we’re always remixing art. People love retellings. Well, unless you call it an adaptation, and then they’ll trip over themselves to tell you why you’re wrong, anti-intellectual, and destroying art. Yikes.

Myth especially fascinates us. Hades and Hades II are massively successful games taking various characters and tales from Greek myth to make a fascinating, original pastiche of sorts. The God of War video game series recently took a spin at the events of Ragnarok from Norse myth. There’s Lore Olympus, Percy Jackson, Record of Ragnarok, and American Gods. I have my retelling of Medea. The list goes on and on.

I want to highlight 4 contemporary pieces of theatre that tackle ancient myths. Maybe you’ll read them, produce them, or even feel inspired to write your own.

1 - Hadestown

There’s no getting around the elephant on the stage. Hadestown by Anais Mitchell is one of the most popular Broadway success stories of this century, and definitely of the 2020s. Hadestown is a take on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. 

In the original myth, Orpheus, a demigod, fell in love with an Argonaut/wind god named Calais. He yearned and yearned and yearned on that adventure with Jason, singing all about his gay little heart. There’s plenty of queerness in Greek myth if you go looking for it. Perhaps someone should tell this part of Orpheus’s story.

Alas, gay marriage wasn’t a thing back then, so he found and fell in love with a tree nymph named Eurydice. While she was fleeing from a man of one sort or another—a common occurrence in Greek myth, uncomfortably enough—Eurydice was bit by a snake and died. Despairing, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and begged to be able to save his beloved. As most of us know, he nearly succeeds. All he has to do is lead her out of the underworld without looking back at her. But right before they achieve victory, he looks. And she’s doomed.

In the musical Hadestown, Orpheus is a demigod raised under the care of Hermes. The world is near-apocalyptic in its harsh seasons due to the strained relationship of Hades & Persephone. While at Hermes’s combination train station-jazz bar, Orpheus meets Eurydice, a human woman relentlessly pursued by the Fates as if they’re secretly the Furies. He woos her. They fall in love. But this is a cruel and cold world, and Orpheus is poor. Hades seduces Eurydice into fleeing to the underworld, to Hadestown, with the promise of a job, of warmth, of food. She signs away her name and her life to work in the capitalist hellscape.

Orpheus chases after her. As he has no train to ride, he must walk the whole way. As he has no ticket inside, he must sing so the walls let him in. He finds Eurydice only to find that she has nearly forgotten herself in the unending work, the Sisyphean task of labor. Hades has his goons beat Orpheus up. Before he leaves, as he’s ordered to do, Orpheus sings a song of revolt, provoking the workers and the walls. They remember themselves. They stand behind him. And then he reminds Hades and Persephone of their love for each other.

Hades, grateful in his own way, permits Orpheus to take Eurydice back home, though he mustn’t look back at her or she will return, trapped in Hadestown forever. He’s certain Orpheus will fail. Part of him needs Orpheus to fail—if Orpheus can defy him so, the other workers might get some ideas, and then that’s the end of Hadestown, of Hades, of capitalism, of the Gods’ dominion over man. But part of him wants Orpheus to succeed. He gives him a chance.

And of course, Orpheus looks back at the last second. Because he loves his lover so.

He fails, and the company tells the audience that they will sing this song again, hoping that the next time it works out. The content (the absurdist struggle of Sisyphus) dictates the form of the story (a self-aware cycle that argues the creation of meaning we engage in when we tell this story matters far more than the despair the gods force upon us).

2 - Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play

Another mythological adaptation that’s getting a lot of attention is Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey. You were likely forced to read parts of Homer’s epic back when you were in high school. I was. My teacher, for at least one day, pronounced the name Odysseus as “Odd-a-Seuss.”

A character who makes a brief appearance in the story is Agamemnon, of doomed House of Atreus fame (you may find yourself thinking that sounds vaguely familiar, even if you know nothing about the myth. You might be thinking of Dune with the doomed House of Atreides). He’s the one who takes the Greeks out to war against the Trojans. To ensure they get there safely, he sacrifices his daughter.

Upon his return home, his wife, Clytemnestra, is not happy about this. So she kills him. This is how we get the classic play cycle the Oresteia. 

The tale of Clytemnestra, like many tales of what happens to Greek women, is tragic. It does not end well for her. Enter Elisabeth Giffin Speckman and her play Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play. In this feminist retelling, we see the story from Clytemnestra’s point of view. It throws you out of time as she answers phones and riches are pulled from her tub. It makes you question the myth and how we tell it. You think about the cruelties of our own world, of patriarchy and suffering, of justice and its lack. You think of reclamation.

Clyt makes use of a Greek chorus, masking, and puppetry. It offers plenty of opportunities for intricate, fun, beautiful stage work. It brought me such joy and amazement the first time I read it, and when I read it again before writing this list, it brought the same.

3 - Aglaonike’s Tiger

When I originally read Clyt, my mind immediately went to Aglaonike’s Tiger by Claudia Barnett. Much like Speckman’s play, it makes brilliant use of ensemble, masks, and puppetry to tell the tale of a woman from Greek myth (who was potentially a real human). Tales of Aggie, as we called her when my college put on a production of this play, called her a witch. But she was more likely an astronomer, a scientist of great skill.

There’s also a tiger. The tiger dances a tango. What more could you want?

I joked with several of my friends and fellow castmates that Aggie—or at least, our production of it—is a furry fever dream. The tiger is a sexual being. And there’s a guy dressed up as a tiger playing him. Hot.

For this production, I was a puppeteer and musician. I operated the tiger cub puppet and the owl puppet. I ran around backstage to get to various spots and instruments. Sometimes I would provide live foley. Sometimes, percussion. Often, saxophones. At a certain point, I played my alto and my soprano at once. It was a wild time.

In being such a fever dream, it was a rather beautiful production. At least, it was beautiful to be part of. I couldn’t tell you what it was like to watch. I fully recommend reading it (find it here on Amazon) and producing it. Much like with Clyt, I have a feeling your actors will thank you for giving them this gift of a show.

4 - Einar’s Ragnarok

Let’s do as Kratos does in the God of War video games series, leave the realm of Greek mythology, and finish, for now, with a little bit of Norse.

Einar’s Ragnarok by Nora Louise Syran continues the fun streak of Clyt and Aglaonike by making use of a potentially large ensemble (depending on the use of doubling), dance, and puppetry.

As I said in my New Play Exchange recommendation of the piece:

We have the myth of the phoenix because we know fire does not simply destroy. It brings new life. Endings are terrifying and can harm as they go, but new creation will come. We consume tragedy because despite the end, we can begin again. Einar knows this, so he writes of Creation again. This show is such a joyous ode to storytelling and theatre itself. I love shows where ensembles build scenes and creatures. How would lights and music, puppets and dance, chant and live body bring such a text to further life? I'd love to find out.

A young storyteller, faced with what feels like the end of the world, writes about the mythological end of the world. He utilizes the stories of the gods to better understand his own world, his place in it, and how he might find hope in all the suffering.

Like Hadestown, Einar’s Ragnarok understands why we keep returning to stories about destruction and rebirth. These myths reflect an absurd universe back at us while resisting nihilism. They remind us how to hope.

Consider a mythical story or figure you really enjoy. What really lies beneath their story? Why does it speak to you? What does the myth actually offer you? 

And, importantly, how might that influence the form you give your retelling?