Epic: The Musical
Jul. 24th, 2026 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThis was already a while ago, but as I'm incredibly busy right now, I only now have the chance to write about: Nolan's movie wasn't the only Odyssee adapation I watched in recent times. After hearing much good about, I also watched Epic: The Musical. Which as I understand it began as a web project and is available completely with various different animations, all done by creative fans, on YouTube. The composer is called Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who also wrote the lyrics, conceived and produced it.
First of: the music is impressive. Very catchy tunes which land emotionally where they should, with perhaps the best villain songs (for yours truly) since the heyday of 1990s Disney (I'm thinking of Scar's "Be Prepared" and Frollo's big outing ), and some great duets (Odysseus and Athena, Odysseus and Circe, and the final duet between Odysseus and Penelope are especially good). Since a musical has to cut out even more source material than a film with dialogue, it's amazing how much was kept and embodied with emotional meaning. (I'm amused that Aeolos and his windy gift to Odysseus who got cut from nearly all adaptations I know did make it into the musical.) Oh, and if anything, the presence of the Gods has been heightened, not least because other than Athena, they're the true antagonists in a very 1990s Xena: Warrior Princess style. Where Zeus only briefly shows up early in the Odyssee to grant Athena her wish re: ordering Calypso to release Athena's fave (i.e. if anythng, he's helpful), he's the secondary bad guy after Poseidon in the musical and gets to be villainous in not one, not two but three songs, for example. And Poseidon, who is something of an off stage antagonist in Homer's poem (as in, he does have it in for Odysseus post Cyclops, but we don't get scenes with him with either Gods or mortals, the other Gods just talk about his ire), here menaces our hero mano a mano , which, needless to say, works far better in a theatrical context.
On the downside, or not, depending on your point of view: this is the adaptation the least interested in the Ithaca parts of the tale, which actually means two thirds of Homer's work. Penelope and Telemachus and the Suitors don't show up until act 2 - unsurprisingly, the musical goes for linear storytelling over the source's non-linear story structure, meaning we start in Troy and end in Ithaca -, there is no Eumaios the Swineherd and no Argos. Granted, a singing dog would not have fitted with the musical's world building anyway, but I suspect the reason for the absence for everyone's favourite Swineherd is at heart the same as to why there are no Phaiacians at all in the musical, either, and it's not just to save time: it wouldn't fit with Odysseus' emotional arc in the musical to find allies who show unasked for kindness and compassion before the big showdown.
Why not? Because if The Return and Nolan's The Odyssee have distinct Vietnam movie vibes (or if you like WWI poetry, though I think both recent cinematic versions of Odysseus feel more like the traumatized Vietnam vets of 1970s and 1980s cinematic lore), it wouldn't suprise me if Rivera-Herrans' Odysseus got inspired by Jack Bauer of 24 fame. Or maybe Frank Miller's Batman, but Bauer fits better, because: he gotta get ruthless and get his hands dirty in a cruel world to save his family, see!
Okay, that's a bit mean, and selling the narrative short, because if Epic's Odysseus has to get increasingly ruthless in order to survive and finally make it home in time to save his wife and son (and because the musical cuts the Ithaca content down to the bare minimum, he really shows up just in time for the bow contest, none of that hanging out with Eumaios, infiltrating the palace, getting bullied by the Suitors, having coded conversations with his wife stuff) and thus adopts his chief antagonist Poseidon's creed that "ruthlessness is mercy towards ourselves", his patron Goddess Athena learns the opposite lesson through the musical, starting out as a "the ends justify the means, mercy is for suckers" type and learns to value friendship and kindness through the tale, in her final scene with Odysseus promising to work to create a better world. But still: Epic's Odysseus is no more an enthusiastic trickster than either Fiennes or Damon. (Though he does share with them that he feels increasing guilt re: his ever dwindling number of men.) It's just that where they are in narratives that need them to confront the past they're running from, he's in a narrative where he made it through the actual Trojan War untraumatized (except for something that happens in the very first scene, more about this in a moment) and willing to give people the idealistic benefit of the doubt, but then through his travels gets trauma and loss heaped upon him until he learns to be the strike first, fight dirty type if he wants to survive - in short, to be an antihero. If you don't want Jack Bauer as a comparison: maybe how Walter White sees himself (though his show does not) until nearly the end of his story.
Something he shares with other more recent versions of Odysseus: no voluntary adultery. (In fact, no adultery at all, because the Circe encounter has him rejecting her advance which turns out to be good because it proves to her he's actually not an inner pig, and the Calypso sequence definitely gives you the impression that while she kept him captive for seven years, he rejected her for every day of them, and she evidently didn't use her divine powers to mind control him into doing other wise.) As I said elsewhere, I get why. Presumably the majority of a modern audience doesn't share the ancient Greek double standard when it comes to sexual fidelity, and thus wants both sides of a story's OTP to remain sexually faithful as well as romantically. But it contributes to the shades of grey of this Odysseus being very different to the shades of grey Homer's Odysseus has. (And it heightens my suspicion that we'll probably never get an adaptation full on embracing the "Lord of Lies" trickster part of Homer's Odysseus.)
Now, given this arc of our hero having to learn to be ruthless through more than two hours of music, what might surprise you is that the musical includes one of THE darkest acts attributed not by Homer, but (some) later versions (notably Euripides) to Odysseus right at the start, and it has nothing to do with the horse. Yep, it's the killing of little Astyanax, baby son of Hector and Andromache. In the opening number. HOWEVER. He really really does not want to do it. Zeus orders him to and explicitly states in reply to each of Odysseus' alternate suggestions of what to (non-lethally) do with the kid (which include him adopting the boy) that this will still result in a grown up Astyanax going on a roaring part of revenge against all the Greeks in general and Odysseus' family in particular. As Epic's Odyseus is aware of how divine prophecies re: babies end up (see also Paris, Trojan War cases in point, see also Oedipus), he reluctantly throws the baby over the wall. In a way, that's already his emotional arc in miniature, and it quickly establishes two things from the outset: a) the Gods are evil bastards, and b) there is nothing Odysseus won't do to get home to Penelope and Telemachus. (Sidenote: while in Greek myths, including those around the Trojan War, you do have Gods demanding human sacrifices - notoriously Artemis with Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon -, there is to my knowledge no version in which any of the Gods demand the death of little Astyanax. Whether it's Neoptolemos/Phyrrus or Odysseus doing the deed, it's always their own decision, though with the same rationale of not wanting a potential avenger of the royal house of Troy around.) But it also says something about the world building, and why I'm more on the Return and the Nolan side of adaptations.
Let me make another comparison: in the rebooted tv show Battlestar Galactica, the opening miniseries actually does include a character killing a baby. While the character is at the time an antagonist, she's not shown to do so out of malice, for the evil kicks, and will later end up as one of the most sympathetic written Cylons, surviving until the very end of the show and getting a sort of, kinda, happy ending. (This is Caprica Six.) What I'm getting at here: though baby killing is usually one of those tropes you only give to the characters designed to be unredeemable villains, it's not impossible to let a character do it and still end up as three dimensional and somewhat sympathetic, though from my own viewing experience, BSG is actually the only show which pulled it off. But see, in that miniseries, Six does it because she's aware there is an impending bombing attack. Getting your neck snapped definitely is more merciful than burning alive or starving to death, should the baby somehow survive the initial attack. She also does it out of her own volition, not because someone tells her to.
Meanwhile, Odysseus doing it because the most powerful of the Greek Gods bullies him into it. Setting up that the reason why Odysseus becomes ever more ruthless throughout the musical is because of all the external forces set up against him. The one thing he's actually responsible for out of his own volition in this version which causes later disasters is telling Polyphemus his name after the blinding, as in Homer, but everything else, he has to do in response to someone else's actions and behavior. I mean, it's a matter of personal preference, but since the musical makes a big deal out of the "when does a man become a monster?" question, I think answering with "when a horrible world alligned against him leaves him no choice" is an easier answer than "when he stops seeing other choices despite them existing".
Other observations:
- the Underworld trip here does include Odysseus' mother, but otherwise no other Shades except for Tiresias (the reason why Odysseus makes the trip to begin with), and what he says is completely different from Homer; instead of useful survival tips and telling Odysseus there will be a final quest, he just tells Odysseus that neither his men nor Odysseus AS HE IS RIGHT NOW will make it back to Ithaca
- giving Odysseus and Athena a fallout early in the journey is actually a useful plot device to explain why she doesn't help him again until the seven years with Calypso have passed
- but good grief, the Gods really - other than Athena - are one note bad news in this version, and stripped of any redeeming trait; thus Poseidon isn't acting out of actual paternal feeling for Polyphemos so much (he outright tells Odysseus it would have been better if he'd killed the Cyclops instead of blinding him) but because he can, and Zeus instead of as in Homer easily granting her request first gives Athena a challenge (to convince five other Gods normally not friendly to her to plead for Odysseus) and then, when she*s mastered that, a brutal beatdown, which is very much not how their relationship is portrayed in practically any other version - I mean, again, I can see the theatrical purpose, because that means Athena really has to work hard to help Odysseus and shows the audience that she truly cares and has changed from the start of the show, but still
- in this version, the crew member other than Eurylochos with actual characterisation is Polites, who talks post-Troy-and-Astyanax-brooding Odysseus into trying the idealistic approach in an adorably fluffy song that makes him sound like a manga character and promptly gets eaten first by Polyphemos
- Circe does remain the sole "monster" who becomes an ally and from whom Odysseus parts in peace and with support given
- otoh the Sirens are worse off here, Odysseus demonstrating his newfound committment to Jack Bauerdom first with them
- mind you, since Melanchthion doesn't exist and neither do the maids, maybe our composer wanted to have SOMEONE mutilated?
First of: the music is impressive. Very catchy tunes which land emotionally where they should, with perhaps the best villain songs (for yours truly) since the heyday of 1990s Disney (I'm thinking of Scar's "Be Prepared" and Frollo's big outing ), and some great duets (Odysseus and Athena, Odysseus and Circe, and the final duet between Odysseus and Penelope are especially good). Since a musical has to cut out even more source material than a film with dialogue, it's amazing how much was kept and embodied with emotional meaning. (I'm amused that Aeolos and his windy gift to Odysseus who got cut from nearly all adaptations I know did make it into the musical.) Oh, and if anything, the presence of the Gods has been heightened, not least because other than Athena, they're the true antagonists in a very 1990s Xena: Warrior Princess style. Where Zeus only briefly shows up early in the Odyssee to grant Athena her wish re: ordering Calypso to release Athena's fave (i.e. if anythng, he's helpful), he's the secondary bad guy after Poseidon in the musical and gets to be villainous in not one, not two but three songs, for example. And Poseidon, who is something of an off stage antagonist in Homer's poem (as in, he does have it in for Odysseus post Cyclops, but we don't get scenes with him with either Gods or mortals, the other Gods just talk about his ire), here menaces our hero mano a mano , which, needless to say, works far better in a theatrical context.
On the downside, or not, depending on your point of view: this is the adaptation the least interested in the Ithaca parts of the tale, which actually means two thirds of Homer's work. Penelope and Telemachus and the Suitors don't show up until act 2 - unsurprisingly, the musical goes for linear storytelling over the source's non-linear story structure, meaning we start in Troy and end in Ithaca -, there is no Eumaios the Swineherd and no Argos. Granted, a singing dog would not have fitted with the musical's world building anyway, but I suspect the reason for the absence for everyone's favourite Swineherd is at heart the same as to why there are no Phaiacians at all in the musical, either, and it's not just to save time: it wouldn't fit with Odysseus' emotional arc in the musical to find allies who show unasked for kindness and compassion before the big showdown.
Why not? Because if The Return and Nolan's The Odyssee have distinct Vietnam movie vibes (or if you like WWI poetry, though I think both recent cinematic versions of Odysseus feel more like the traumatized Vietnam vets of 1970s and 1980s cinematic lore), it wouldn't suprise me if Rivera-Herrans' Odysseus got inspired by Jack Bauer of 24 fame. Or maybe Frank Miller's Batman, but Bauer fits better, because: he gotta get ruthless and get his hands dirty in a cruel world to save his family, see!
Okay, that's a bit mean, and selling the narrative short, because if Epic's Odysseus has to get increasingly ruthless in order to survive and finally make it home in time to save his wife and son (and because the musical cuts the Ithaca content down to the bare minimum, he really shows up just in time for the bow contest, none of that hanging out with Eumaios, infiltrating the palace, getting bullied by the Suitors, having coded conversations with his wife stuff) and thus adopts his chief antagonist Poseidon's creed that "ruthlessness is mercy towards ourselves", his patron Goddess Athena learns the opposite lesson through the musical, starting out as a "the ends justify the means, mercy is for suckers" type and learns to value friendship and kindness through the tale, in her final scene with Odysseus promising to work to create a better world. But still: Epic's Odysseus is no more an enthusiastic trickster than either Fiennes or Damon. (Though he does share with them that he feels increasing guilt re: his ever dwindling number of men.) It's just that where they are in narratives that need them to confront the past they're running from, he's in a narrative where he made it through the actual Trojan War untraumatized (except for something that happens in the very first scene, more about this in a moment) and willing to give people the idealistic benefit of the doubt, but then through his travels gets trauma and loss heaped upon him until he learns to be the strike first, fight dirty type if he wants to survive - in short, to be an antihero. If you don't want Jack Bauer as a comparison: maybe how Walter White sees himself (though his show does not) until nearly the end of his story.
Something he shares with other more recent versions of Odysseus: no voluntary adultery. (In fact, no adultery at all, because the Circe encounter has him rejecting her advance which turns out to be good because it proves to her he's actually not an inner pig, and the Calypso sequence definitely gives you the impression that while she kept him captive for seven years, he rejected her for every day of them, and she evidently didn't use her divine powers to mind control him into doing other wise.) As I said elsewhere, I get why. Presumably the majority of a modern audience doesn't share the ancient Greek double standard when it comes to sexual fidelity, and thus wants both sides of a story's OTP to remain sexually faithful as well as romantically. But it contributes to the shades of grey of this Odysseus being very different to the shades of grey Homer's Odysseus has. (And it heightens my suspicion that we'll probably never get an adaptation full on embracing the "Lord of Lies" trickster part of Homer's Odysseus.)
Now, given this arc of our hero having to learn to be ruthless through more than two hours of music, what might surprise you is that the musical includes one of THE darkest acts attributed not by Homer, but (some) later versions (notably Euripides) to Odysseus right at the start, and it has nothing to do with the horse. Yep, it's the killing of little Astyanax, baby son of Hector and Andromache. In the opening number. HOWEVER. He really really does not want to do it. Zeus orders him to and explicitly states in reply to each of Odysseus' alternate suggestions of what to (non-lethally) do with the kid (which include him adopting the boy) that this will still result in a grown up Astyanax going on a roaring part of revenge against all the Greeks in general and Odysseus' family in particular. As Epic's Odyseus is aware of how divine prophecies re: babies end up (see also Paris, Trojan War cases in point, see also Oedipus), he reluctantly throws the baby over the wall. In a way, that's already his emotional arc in miniature, and it quickly establishes two things from the outset: a) the Gods are evil bastards, and b) there is nothing Odysseus won't do to get home to Penelope and Telemachus. (Sidenote: while in Greek myths, including those around the Trojan War, you do have Gods demanding human sacrifices - notoriously Artemis with Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon -, there is to my knowledge no version in which any of the Gods demand the death of little Astyanax. Whether it's Neoptolemos/Phyrrus or Odysseus doing the deed, it's always their own decision, though with the same rationale of not wanting a potential avenger of the royal house of Troy around.) But it also says something about the world building, and why I'm more on the Return and the Nolan side of adaptations.
Let me make another comparison: in the rebooted tv show Battlestar Galactica, the opening miniseries actually does include a character killing a baby. While the character is at the time an antagonist, she's not shown to do so out of malice, for the evil kicks, and will later end up as one of the most sympathetic written Cylons, surviving until the very end of the show and getting a sort of, kinda, happy ending. (This is Caprica Six.) What I'm getting at here: though baby killing is usually one of those tropes you only give to the characters designed to be unredeemable villains, it's not impossible to let a character do it and still end up as three dimensional and somewhat sympathetic, though from my own viewing experience, BSG is actually the only show which pulled it off. But see, in that miniseries, Six does it because she's aware there is an impending bombing attack. Getting your neck snapped definitely is more merciful than burning alive or starving to death, should the baby somehow survive the initial attack. She also does it out of her own volition, not because someone tells her to.
Meanwhile, Odysseus doing it because the most powerful of the Greek Gods bullies him into it. Setting up that the reason why Odysseus becomes ever more ruthless throughout the musical is because of all the external forces set up against him. The one thing he's actually responsible for out of his own volition in this version which causes later disasters is telling Polyphemus his name after the blinding, as in Homer, but everything else, he has to do in response to someone else's actions and behavior. I mean, it's a matter of personal preference, but since the musical makes a big deal out of the "when does a man become a monster?" question, I think answering with "when a horrible world alligned against him leaves him no choice" is an easier answer than "when he stops seeing other choices despite them existing".
Other observations:
- the Underworld trip here does include Odysseus' mother, but otherwise no other Shades except for Tiresias (the reason why Odysseus makes the trip to begin with), and what he says is completely different from Homer; instead of useful survival tips and telling Odysseus there will be a final quest, he just tells Odysseus that neither his men nor Odysseus AS HE IS RIGHT NOW will make it back to Ithaca
- giving Odysseus and Athena a fallout early in the journey is actually a useful plot device to explain why she doesn't help him again until the seven years with Calypso have passed
- but good grief, the Gods really - other than Athena - are one note bad news in this version, and stripped of any redeeming trait; thus Poseidon isn't acting out of actual paternal feeling for Polyphemos so much (he outright tells Odysseus it would have been better if he'd killed the Cyclops instead of blinding him) but because he can, and Zeus instead of as in Homer easily granting her request first gives Athena a challenge (to convince five other Gods normally not friendly to her to plead for Odysseus) and then, when she*s mastered that, a brutal beatdown, which is very much not how their relationship is portrayed in practically any other version - I mean, again, I can see the theatrical purpose, because that means Athena really has to work hard to help Odysseus and shows the audience that she truly cares and has changed from the start of the show, but still
- in this version, the crew member other than Eurylochos with actual characterisation is Polites, who talks post-Troy-and-Astyanax-brooding Odysseus into trying the idealistic approach in an adorably fluffy song that makes him sound like a manga character and promptly gets eaten first by Polyphemos
- Circe does remain the sole "monster" who becomes an ally and from whom Odysseus parts in peace and with support given
- otoh the Sirens are worse off here, Odysseus demonstrating his newfound committment to Jack Bauerdom first with them
- mind you, since Melanchthion doesn't exist and neither do the maids, maybe our composer wanted to have SOMEONE mutilated?
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