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Hawa Kamara — who plays Eurydice in the touring production of “Hadestown,” at Cerritos Center on April 27 — says she’s been a fan of Anaïs Mitchell’s musical since she first heard its Grammy Award-winning soundtrack of soulful jazz, blues and folk music.
“Seeing it live on Broadway solidified my desire to be a part of a story like this,” Kamara told the Long Beach Post on playing her character. “So human, so raw and so universal — it’s the type of theater that I’m incredibly attracted to.”
“Hadestown” borrows from Greek myth to tell the story of musician Orpheus following his love Eurydice into the underworld to bring her back. Only in this version, Orpheus is a poor singer-songwriter and Eurydice is a starving and cold young woman who goes to work in a hellish industrial factory called Hadestown.
“I would describe Eurydice as someone incredibly practical and logical about the way the world works, almost to her own demise,” Kamara says of her character. “She is a survivor of a cold and depleted world, with all intentions of putting herself and her needs first — until she meets Orpheus, who is a foil to everything she has built up.”
The “sung-through” musical is told completely through song and also features other characters from Greek myth, including Hermes as narrator, the three Fates, god-of-the-underworld Hades and his wife Persephone, who spends six months with him and six above ground.
Winner of several Tony Awards in 2019, including for best musical and best score, the show has themes of food scarcity amid climate change and labor exploitation. A key moment in the show is when Eurydice signs a fateful work contract with Hades she can’t get out of.
One of the show’s songs, “If It’s True,” has the lines “Is this how the world is? / To be beaten and betrayed / And then be told that nothing changes?” — which may echo feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness, especially among younger people today facing bleak job prospects.
“How close we are in this world to that of Hadestown isn’t lost on me,” Kamara said. “The lyrics of ‘If It’s True’ hit me every night. However, one of the show’s central themes is to have hope in a seemingly dreadful world, so as I’m brought to literal hell and back, I do leave the theater with a sense of hope.”
The biggest challenge with playing her role has been the emotional vulnerability it requires, Kamara said, though that also makes it her most cherished performing experience among roles in “Peter Pan” and “The Great Gatsby.”
“Getting to be completely open and bare alongside my castmates — most of whom I met three months ago when I joined the company — was very scary at first,” she said. “But as I became more comfortable with the story and gained more trust in myself as a storyteller, I look forward to the challenge of living the tale every day.”
She usually takes a moment alone before the show’s second act to recalibrate her emotions, Kamara said, and needs to wind down afterward, both physically and mentally, to calm the adrenaline.
The musical is a daily reminder of how we live in the world and how it works, Kamara said. Long Beach audiences can expect a “beautifully tragic story that pulls you in from the very beginning.”
“Laughter will be had, tears will be shed,” she said. “But most importantly, you’ll walk away feeling changed, with new thoughts about the world we dream of, and the world we live in now.”
And as a self-described “queer Black kid,” Kamara wants to tell others like her who don’t often see themselves represented in performing arts, “No matter what mold or stereotypical gender roles theaters set up, you belong in these spaces!”
“Hadestown” will perform on Monday, April 27, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Dr., Cerritos. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-916-8500 or visit CerritosCenter.com.