Wyn Caudle
Editor-in-Chief
I know not everybody likes or tends to listen to musicals due to their performative aspects. However, as a genre, I find musicals fascinating in the expansive ways they are able to tell stories through musical arrangements. Not only is a story being told by the actors but also by the motifs and recognizable patterns that we subconsciously register as we listen.
For most of my life I have listened to and enjoyed a wide variety of musicals. Some, like “Heathers” or “SIX”, have scenes and moments that are not sung but rather acted out by the actors, while others like “Hamilton” or “Into the Woods” are told without many musical pauses, if any at all. “EPIC: The Musical” is one of the former. The storytelling is told through the songs without dialogue pauses in which more story is told. Jorge Rivera-Herrans, the creator of “EPIC”, wrote his musical in such a way that it could be played continuously and the entire story would be present.
“EPIC” is a retelling of the Odyssey, following the original in a recognizable way. Throughout the musical Rivera-Herrans uses musical motifs to signify what is going on in the songs. For example, Athena, (voiced by Teagen Earley) is first introduced in “Warrior of the Mind”, where the audience hears her motif repeated a few times. It’s a piano trill that is then heard in the rest of the musical whenever she talks to Odysseus. This is most present during the Cyclops saga; when in the end the two characters part ways. The song in which this happens, “My Goodbye”, has some important musical motifs to mention. Throughout the play Odysseus sings with lots of riffs and vibrato in his songs. When Athena sings at the beginning of “Warrior of the Mind”, she starts off singing flat notes but slowly transitions to the same style of riffs that Odysseus sings with. However in “My Goodbye”, she starts with the same riff style as Odysseus then as the song progresses, she switches back to her original style of singing flat single notes. The next time the audience hears her piano motif is in “Legendary,” when Athena decides to help Odysseus’ son stand up to the suitors in Ithaca. There are plenty more moments I could comment on, but these musical motifs are part of the reason I think everyone should hear the musical at least once.
In this story and many other musicals, there is a layer of storytelling hidden beneath the lyrics and present in the soundtrack that can be missed in a typical play or song. I think it’s also important to listen to this musical with the visual aid that animatics provide to the audience as they display another level of storytelling that would be typically shown through an actor portrayal.