Art is a beautiful ruse. Movies trick you into believing a bunch of still images projected just right are actually moving, breathing worlds. Books transform words into anecdotes and domiciles you can practically touch. Music transfigures crooning and drum smacking into wonderful voids you never want to leave. Then there are stage productions, like musicals. These endeavors always utilize extremely limited casts and equally constricted physical confines (there’s just a single stage) to tell their stories.

Yet the best musicals make audiences feel as if entire universes are suddenly unfurling. They make tiny casts feel like armies. And they can make people bursting into song the most natural way characters express themselves. Art is a beautiful form of masterful trickery. Musical theatre is no exception.

Hadestown: The Musical offers a sublime opportunity to cherish that reality. This pro-shoot of February/March West End performances of Hadestown utilizes central cast members from the show’s original Broadway run. This Southern/Western reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice follows a gaggle of poverty-stricken characters, including the persistently hungry and cynical Eurydice (Eva Noblezada). Anaïs Mitchell’s script collides this young woman with the endlessly hopeful lyricist Orpheus (Reeve Carney).

These two quickly fall in love even in a challenging world. Unfortunately, hunger and turmoil keeps plaguing Eurydice. Seeking long-desired security, she accepts an offer from Hades (Patrick Page) to be his wife in the isolated bourgeoise realm Hadestown. Hadestown: The Musical then focuses on Orpheus putting down his pen and paper and engaging on a high-stakes rescue mission. Time to go to the underworld and hope Hades doesn’t immediately yell “somebody get these B E G G A R S out of here!” upon seeing him.

Mitchell’s Hadestown vision could only exist in musical theatre. Here is a story where the first words Orpheus utters to Eurydice are about how much he wants to marry her. Reeve Carney’s beautiful uber-high-pitched voice, meanwhile, is so sincere that it would never work in more intrinsically cynical confines. Though it has postmodern qualities, particularly with Hades’  nefariousness being defined by “building a wall” or excessive capitalistic greed, Hadestown is often a classical yarn. It’s more interesting in functioning as a new ancient legend rather than a snarky skewering of one.

This approach is perfect for musical theatre’s heightened sensibilities. Everyone in this production gives it 110%, whether it’s in the impressive dance choreography from the ensemble cast members or Amber Gray’s exceedingly entertaining externalized Persephone performance. Impressively, Mitchell and company don’t sacrifice tangible human emotion in the process. When Eva Noblezada aching depicts her characters most vulnerable moments, only someone with a stone heart wouldn’t burst into tears.

Hadestown’s inhabitants aren’t just good for surface-level spectacle. They’re also flat-out engaging characters. Orpheus’s gung-ho tune “Wait for Me’s” absorbing nature, for instance, wouldn’t exist if these fictional souls were hollow.

These great Hadestown qualities really sing through this both particular West End production and director Brett Sullivan’s specific filmmaking flourishes. Sullivan’s camera kicks off the show chronicling the actors and technicians’ moments before the curtain’s ready to rise. Emphasizing final makeup touches and artists championing “love” as creativity’s primary driver immediately underscores the humanity fueling this Hadestown rendition. Such emotional immersion also reverberates through Sullivan and Clayton Jacobsen’s go-to camera angles.

The duo especially adore low and high angle shots making use of a rising circular platform in the middle of the stage. This pathway represents characters ascending or descending into Hell. Anytime these dramatic voyages occur, Sullivan and Jacobsen plunge the camera deep inside the hole itself or opting for expansive God’s-eye views of this mechanism. These images offer up striking Hadestown perspectives you couldn’t get just watching the show live.

A similar feat is accomplished through relying on split diopter shots. This Brian de Palma and Orson Welles fixture materializes stunningly here, providing fresh intimate glimpses into a familiar show. Such intentionally claustrophobic visuals allow performers like Page to excel with subtle yet impactful facial acting. If this all sounds too cramped for a stage musical, fret not. Sullivan and company still pull the camera out constantly throughout Hadestown: The Musical so that viewers can marinate in the richly detailed choreography and set design.

The latter element especially impresses in its most atmospheric moments, like Orpheus confronting the Fates (Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, Allie Daniel) clutching old-timey lanterns against a black void covered in fog. Ostensibly, the lights have only been dimmed on the show’s default backdrop. Yet the specific props and lighting choices make it feel like Orpheus has stumbled into an ominous swampy void. Shortly before this moment, this character’s big “Wait for Me’ number features a jaw-dropping moment where the set “explodes” in scale. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but it’s a towering image that makes the space inside a West End auditorium feel limitless.

That dazzling showmanship drives the greatest stage musicals. Ditto the array of memorable performances littering Hadestown: The Musical, like André De Shields’ riveting turn as Hermes. Translating this production to a filmed movie incarnation has only amplified its artistry rather than diluted it. Hop aboard the Hadestown: The Musical train and remember why art’s a ruse you want to bamboozle you.

Hadestown: The Musical is now playing in theaters.