YMMV / Orpheus: A Poetic Drama

• Accidental Aesop: The focus on Aristaeus's bees opening rifts between the Underworld and the world above, and their beneficial effects on both, can be seen as having a Green Aesop when the main focus was on Orpheus, Eurydice, and their love story.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Hades can be seen as both a power-hungry tyrant who relishes in his power over his subjects and a man stuck in his ways who's afraid of change even when it has potential to be beneficial.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The play is a very loose adaptation of the Orpheus myth with heavily Christian takes on the themes of identity, free will, death and resurrection, and eternal salvation. The play took 50 years to be published and has only been performed twice, once in 1948 and again in 2015. Part of the issue is not only the esoteric and confusing dialogue and happenings in the play, but the play's subject matter; Christians are unlikely to think of a retelling of a Greek myth when looking for Christian plays, while fans of Greek mythology are likely to be turned off by the sheer inaccuracy of the play compared to the source material and the overt Christianity.
• Funny Moments:
  • Aristaeus's sheer disbelief that Orpheus could miss something so big and obvious as a swarm of bees passing by.
  • Persephone teases Hades about his fear of bees infiltrating the land of the dead by raising her arm in salute and mocking him. "Hail paramount Hades! Lord of the Styx and frightened of the bees!"
  • When Hades is making plans with Ascalaphus to ruin Orpheus's escape attempt, his first thought is that Ascalaphus should appear as Eurydice and lead him astray. Ascalaphus points out that if he appears in front of Orpheus it won't work out since Eurydice is supposed to be following him.
• Genius Bonus: Bees traveling between worlds is a part of European folklore, and "telling the bees" of prominent deaths or other happenings is a way to keep them alive and content—hence Aristaeus's hive collapsing when he fails to provide libations to Eurydice.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When Eurydice has to leave Orpheus for a bit, she leaves her scarf behind as a memento. He buries his face in it.
  • Orpheus helps each of the denizens of Hades when he arrives and begins to sing, helping Sisyphus realize the endless work Hades assigns him is pointless, helping the Danaides recall the taste of water, and helping Tantalus remember who he once was.
  • Persephone essentially weds Orpheus and Eurydice in the underworld before the ascent, having each hold hands and affirm it's their will to serve the other.
  • In the ending, despite Hades' protests, Orpheus and Eurydice refuse to stop trying to enter the paradise of Elysium, and it's implied they succeed. Persephone also hears from her mother, Demeter, that she did well in guiding them.
  • The Maenads deeply regret what they did to Orpheus and go among the animals to learn from them and atone.

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