Myths and Hymns

The following thoughts are adapted from my director’s notes for Hope Repertory Theatre’s production of Myths and Hymns by Adam Guettel (July 2025).

During the past year, I have attended five funerals. One was for my father-in-law, and another was for my own father. So, when I started seriously listening to Myths and Hymns, the fragility of life was already on my mind. I could feel the thinness between life and death, between earth and heaven. I could taste my father’s big dreams, big triumphs, and devastating losses … and I could taste my own.

In those tender moments of fragility, I could also feel my own yearnings for something more. The “more" I yearn for is not wealth, fame, or honor, but something truer and less ego-driven. I yearn for wholeness.

Myths and Hymns is a collection of songs featuring individuals who strive for more. All of them are seeking wholeness, but most of them look in the wrong places—like we all do. The myths and ballads of the musical feature stories of yearning and loss, but also of hope. The hymns complement the myths beautifully as they point to an ultimate hope—that things will eventually be made whole, even if they aren’t right now. For some of us that might be a heavenly afterlife, for others it's the hope that love and justice might ultimately prevail in our own lifetime despite enormous headwinds.

The original title for Myths and Hymns was Saturn Returns. It takes Saturn about 29.5 years to return to the place it was in the sky when you were born. Saturn’s return is known for ushering in a pivotal chapter in one’s life—defined by self-reflection, growth, and transformative challenges. Adam Guettel was twenty-nine when he composed Myths and Hymns, and, in part, it is about his own struggles with addiction and his search for wholeness.

One of my favorite songs from Myths and Hymns is "Migratory V." It comes right after the myth of Icarus and his failed pursuit of glory. A solo voice sings:

We sail above the weather

We search the ocean floor

We rival our creation still yearning for more

But can we fly together

A migratory V

How wonderful if that's what God could see.

The suggestion is that Icarus fails in his pursuit of wholeness, not only because he pursues the wrong thing, but because he decides to fly alone. Wholeness, it seems, can be found in community, especially when it flies together like a migratory V.

Admittedly, Myths and Hymns is a unique song-cycle, but that doesn’t diminish its spiritual truths. As a Quaker, I value its exploration of human fragility, its honest reflection on our deep longing for wholeness as we reach toward the heavens and the Divine, and its call to nuture community.

Wherever you are on your life’s journey, may you continue to strive toward wholeness, and may you be blessed with good community.

[Photo credit: Lydia Ruth Dawson]