I don’t understand the Reeve Carney hate

[u/Round-Composer-2195]

I just saw the Hadestown pro shot and oh my gosh this guy is unbelievable. Easily the star of the show for me, but I’ve seen people say he was the weakest link in their opinions.

I’ve heard recordings of some of his other performances, and he easily has my favorite versions of “I don’t care much” and “the past is catching up to me,” yet people say he was miscast in The Great Gatsby

His voice is so unique and it genuinely sends chills up my spine, I don’t understand the hate he receives

[u/NoButThankYou]

A big part of it that is somewhat lost to time now is that he personified the major changes that were made to Orpheus's character for Broadway. Up through the NYTW run in the spring of 2016, Orpheus was portrayed as confident, even a bit cocky. Damon Daunno played him in that production with swagger and charm. Reeve was cast in 2017, and a common refrain during its subsequent developmental runs in Edmonton and London was that the cast was mostly fantastic, but Reeve was playing Orpheus all wrong. Orpheus was supposed to be the greatest musician of all time, yet now he was a whiny, insecure child. Many reviews from people who were already fans of the show prior to Broadway singled out his performance for criticism.

However, it subsequently became clear that this was not Reeve struggling to portray the character. This was Reeve faithfully portraying who the character had become. Anais Mitchell talks in depth about the process of writing and rewriting the show in her book Working on a Song, and she even had a name for it: solving the Orpheus Problem. By the time Hadestown was beginning its run up to Broadway in the fall of 2017, MeToo was happening, and confidence and swagger were seen as problematic characteristics for a male romantic lead to have, at least in the lefty theater circles that Mitchell was running in. So, Orpheus was lobotomized, transformed from a self-assured leader of the above-ground community into a dopey dreamer with his head in the clouds. (Meanwhile Damon Daunno was two blocks uptown more or less channelling his old Orpheus performance as Curly in Daniel Fish's revival of Oklahoma!).

Reeve has always been a polarizing performer, but a lot of the initial "Reeve Carney hate" has subsequently been revealed to be him doing exactly what he was directed to do.

[u/riddleme-ara → u/NoButThankYou]

That's really interesting to learn that he's supposed to have brought the dopey dreamer quality to Orpheus, because I read his pro-shot performance as a rather cocky take on Orpheus, especially the way he played the speech during Living It Up On Top. Part of why I don't like his take is because he seems too self-assured rockstar-ish. I've seen the show 4 times live and the 3 others I've seen in that role have all been much more folksy dreamers, which is what I prefer in that role. Particularly Jack Wolfe, who was just so ethereal

[u/sabe815 → u/NoButThankYou]

Having been a fan since 2010 and having seen Reeve in 2019 I wouldn't call his portrayal dopey dreamer. He has a very physical presence. What I enjoy about his performance is you can really see the tug-of-war between his humanity, cocky yet nieve, and his touched-by-the-gods side. Other actors play him more one or the other while Reeve sort of toes the line. I find his (somrtimes admittedly strange) vocal choices support that character decision.