Review: Hearthbound
Stories stretch. They can bend and twist through time and place, seeming different as they take on new faces, names and sounds. They remain something incredibly human, despite how difficult they can be to tack down and even more difficult to examine. Audio drama holds a unique place in this tradition, typically foregoing visuals for us to sit in the theatre of the mind.
Many fiction podcasts sit in a comfortable tradition of using that lack of visual to punch hard. Some of the most beautifully compelling of audio dramas can hold your attention in its clutches, stringing you along down a dark hallway, thrilling you despite that you can’t see what your body is telling you to fear.
This is not one of those podcasts. Hearthbound is a show that is sitting comfortably in a different thread of audio. It pulls and stretches at a familiar story, to take shape across a desert, with familiar names and personalities that echo across the ages as it tackles fear, loneliness, love, and more.
Set in a post-apocalypse, so far ahead in the future that we have nuclear waste warnings, sits a tale of a traveler, trying to get home. Odessa sits with her guitar, her dog, and her memories of Ithaca somewhere lingering on the Pacific shore. In the first season, we don’t particularly know why she left home, but we get a lot of why she hasn’t made it back yet. Weaving through new convention of hospitality, humanity, and a new pantheon of Gods, this podcast takes us gently through a story we think we know. It highlights the original with the colors of now, of who we are as humans in America, staring down a desert whose ownership has seemed to change hands, and probably one day will again. That is, if we can own land.
The first season starts slowly, making you wonder what it means to be an “untelling” of such a familiar story, but it catches up to itself as you sink into what it is now versus what it was then. It’s a fantastic podcast for slowing down, for sinking into some music, and letting the night wash over you as you take it in. There is room for a fire, and a very cozy blanket as you massage your way into Odessa’s life and mind in these twenty-minute episodes. A longing for a clearer picture of the known Odyssey becomes a comfortable what is now, and new. Characters flicker along like pages in a book, giving you familiar archetypes and flavors across well-performed outlines that keep you reaching. Everything is written in such a way that opens each performance to greatness, but outside the characters of Odessa and Cal, they aren’t given the time to breathe into a standout, like the flickering of strangers on the side of the highway, a glimpse, and then you move on.
The greatest performance in this podcast is the nestling of Odessa and Cal in this futuristic desert audio scape that despite this story taking place in the future, it feels familiar like the past. The way it weaves the desert sounds of whippoorwills, dunes, and stardust elevates the podcast to a different height. Nothing is taken for granted in the design of this drama as it balances the smooth talents of the voice actors with grace and humility.
One of the parts I really love about this podcast is that after the episode we get a little extra - almost like a behind-the-scenes of each episode. Moments, rituals, and more from indigenous cultures and beyond are woven into the tapestry of this story in this time and place. Having the extra tidbit is like a treat and opens the listener up to not just the story, but the creation of the story. It’s a nice little moment to give the audience as it winds down. One is left with less wondering and more satisfaction than I think if the episodes ended and the credits rolled.
Overall, if you’re looking for a podcast where you can yearn with an open heart and feel connected without looking over your shoulder, I definitely suggest giving Hearthbound a try as you cozy up to your campfire this autumn.
Hearthbound Now Available on All Podcast Platforms
CREDITS FOR HEARTHBOUND
Writer and Producer: Jo Chiang
Director: Jack Towhey Calk
Music Director: Ginger Dolden
Music Production: Pete Lanctot
Sound Designer and Editor: Levi Sharpe
Odessa is voiced by Jo Chiang
Cal is voiced by Manami Maxted
Paulie is voiced by Amy Surratt
Medea is voiced by Liba Vaynberg
Circe is voiced by Arielle Yoder
Hank/Man on Tape is voiced by Francisco Alvidrez
Penelope is voiced by Keren Abreu
Uri is voiced by Othello Pratt Jr.
Theo is voiced by Leana Gardella
Tig is voiced by Blair Medina-Baldwin
Cassandra is voiced by Niki Asfar
Manny is voiced by Pete Winfrey
Helen is voiced by Tosha Taylor
Nico is voiced by Schuyler Van Amson
Antony is voiced by Joey Odom
Markus is voiced by Jack Towhey Calk
Disc Jockey is voiced by Lillian Meredith
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