Hamilton - The Musical

[axordil]

Looks like the 2017-18 season here. Which is as soon as one could expect it, I suppose.

[Primula Baggins]

Miranda is leaving the production on July 9th, but he says there will be a complete original cast video recording made before then. I don't know how long we'll have to wait for it—probably pretty long, since they want to make money off the road shows.

[Dave_LF]

I would suggest listening a few times, the rap makes it hard to catch first time out.

I've done this now and also read through much of the book* as well. Really, really impressed. Since it's not my usual musical style, the rhythms and rhyme schemes are all novel and interesting to me (and wow are both complex!), and the lyrical density is remarkable. I don't know how much of that is just hip-hop and how much is Miranda, but it's something. It's a challenging thing for me to listen to on a number of levels, but I'm glad I'm doing it.

*I aim to get through it all before showday, but I'm running out of time

[yovargas]

I don't know how much of that is just hip-hop and how much is Miranda, but it's something.

(Psssst....it's pretty much just hip-hop.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't know how much of that is just hip-hop and how much is Miranda, but it's something.

(Psssst....it's pretty much just hip-hop.)

(Psssst....that's what Dave write, not Al.)

[yovargas]

(Psssst....oops, fixed)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

(Pssst .... )

[Jude]

He went round the back of the Post Office, and was about to slip inside when a figure in the shadow said, "Pissed!"

"I suspect you mean Psst?" said Moist. Sane Alex stepped out of the shadows...

from Going Postal

[Maria]

That's one joke that really didn't make sense in the audiobook.

[Dave_LF]

I've finally finished my review of Hamilton. The thing got a bit out of control, but that's only appropriate given the subject matter. This is easily going to be the longest post I've made in my nearly 15 years on these boards, even if you include quotes.

If you're kind and patient enough to read the whole thing, please let me know what you think and whether I've left anything out that you'd like to know more about. I plan to publish this to Facebook in a day or two, but I'll be happy to revise it first.

Here goes...

On July 25th, I had the opportunity to see Hamilton live in New York. Several people have asked for my thoughts. It's not possible to absorb this show without feeling inspired or at least guilted into writing something, so I suppose jotting them down is the least I can do. In the spirit of the protagonist, I'm going to respond with something far longer than anyone wanted. Consider yourself warned.

Hamilton, if you don't already know, is a rap/hip-hop musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton. The first time you hear this, you pause and wait for the punchline. When you learn there isn't one, you assume the thing must be some sort of publicly-funded educational production trying just a little too hard to be cool. But it's not a joke, and it's not pedagogy. It's a serious, full-scale Broadway production that doesn't just warrant its spot in that district--it's likely to go on to earn a position among the top musicals of all time.

Now, I am not and never have been what you'd call a rap fan. Not because of any inherent distaste for the style, but because it is so often associated with sleaze and a celebration of the low life. This was a hurdle I had to cross before I could even give the thing a shot, and one I probably never would have crossed left wholly to my own devices (thanks Beth). I am presumably not the only one who feels this way, because Hamilton is not the first attempt to bring rap to Broadway--it's just the first to do so successfully in a way that appeals to a wide audience. One reviewer wrote that this is because it chose to use rap as form rather than content, and I agree. I'll quibble just a bit because I think it uses it for both--rap and hip-hop are an essential part of the show's identity, and it would be a very different production if it had been done in a more traditional fashion. But the heart of show is a very human story about ambition and legacy, priorities and tradeoffs, duty and regret, and flawed characters working to define and achieve their goals while they're running out of time. Like so many great stories it is a tale of death and immortality, and that tale would have been just as compelling if it had been told in a different style.

But writer/creator Lin-Manuel Miranda chose to use rap and I, at least, am grateful for that choice. Because Hamilton is the production that convinced me I should accept rap as a bona fide art form. The complexity of the rhythm and rhyme employed here are simply astounding to a mind more accustomed to the simple "abab" patterns most found in most songs and poems. On top of that, Miranda is clearly a vocabulary geek and doesn't shy away from using big or obscure words* (quick, think of a followup for "a bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists," and rhyme syllables in the middle, not just at the end). It's all you can do to keep up, but it's so much fun to try. What a really good massage does for your joints and muscles, Hamilton's lyrics do for your brain--they bend you into surprising and unfamiliar positions, but leave you feeling great.

And Hamilton's rap isn't just fun to listen to. With its ability to pack a lot of information into something that's pleasing to the ear and easy to remember, it's well-suited to storytelling. Others have suggested that the "rap musical" is a natural evolution of Shakespeare's** theatrical verse, which is fair, but I think an even older English-language precedent can be found in Anglo-Saxon narrative poetry with its complex patterns of stress and alliteration--on my first listen, I found myself thinking of Beowulf more than Hamlet. Perhaps theatrical rap is a synthesis of the two, sped up and amped up to match the pace of our technological, word-saturated world. Whatever it is, now that Hamilton has broken the stereotype (another thing it excels at) I'm sure we'll be seeing rap in serious stage productions again.

* * * * *

But enough high-level analysis. What was the show itself like? A couple quick thoughts on the venue: Wikipedia tells me that Richard Rogers Theater can seat about 1300 people, which seems like a reasonably large number. It is nevertheless a fairly intimate environment, and thanks to the steep stadium layout, even in row "R" I felt closer to the action than I have in other shows I've been to. The flipside is that you don't get a lot of leg or elbow room, which can make for an uncomfortable physical experience when you're over six feet tall. Small price to pay.

The most interesting feature of the stage itself to a novice like me was the motorized turntable, something I'd never encountered before. It is built into the center of the floor in the same plane and allows the actors and sets to be rotated in real time. Hamilton actually uses a two-piece turntable consisting of a central disc surrounded by a separate concentric ring. Both pieces can rotate independently in the same or in opposite directions. The show gets a lot of mileage out of this. It's used to reinforce the impression of combatants circling each other (the motion and focus shifts in "Ten Duel Commandments" are fantastically complex), to show action from multiple vantage points, and to swap foreground and background. Actors can stride along the outer ring in the direction opposite the rotation to give the impression of walking long distances as different pieces of scenery spin by on the inside. And of course it's used to create all sorts of purely aesthetic effects. I have a lot of respect for the people who make all this happen; ordinary dancing seems difficult enough to me without having the floor literally move beneath your feet, and it's hard for me to fathom how choreography is possible even when the dancers are the only moving parts.

* * * * *

On to the story. A rundown of the major characters and the actors who played them:

Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton is a talented, orphaned, immigrant nobody from the Caribbean who comes to New York to attend college and gets himself mixed up in the revolution in the process. He is determined to make a legacy for himself one way or another, and if that means dying on the battlefield in glory, so be it. Dying heroically is an easy way to make a name for yourself, but Hamilton survives the war and discovers that living and governing are harder.

At the performance we attended, Hamilton was played by Miguel Cervantes, who will be taking over the role when the show moves to Chicago (he's evidently in New York to train for it). Miranda himself played Hamilton for more than a year until he left the show earlier this month. Cervantes gives the character the same frenetic energy Miranda did, but Cervantes's take seems to possess a degree of inner calm and self-assurance that stands in contrast to the squirrelly insecurity of Miranda's. This is a difference rather than a flaw, and while it would have been something to see the show's creator in person, Cervantes is a fully worthy successor for the part.

Best number: "My Shot." Introduces several important recurring motifs and sums up everything you need to know about what the character can do and what motivates him. Also uses "in loco parentis" as the second half of a rhyme. Runner up (Hamilton's in almost every number, so I'm allowed to choose two): The soliloquy in "The World Was Wide Enough" where Hamilton's life flashes before his eyes as he literally runs from death rushing toward him (there's a nice bit of foreshadowing for this moment at the start of "Stay Alive." Bullet time on stage).

Bonus observation: The introduction refers to Hamilton as "the ten-dollar founding father without a father." Good stuff. I'm glad the actual US treasury backed off its plan to redesign the ten for the simple reason that it means this line can stay.

Aaron Burr

Burr, like Hamilton, is an orphan determined to leave a legacy. Unlike Hamilton, Burr has already inherited one, and his job is to protect it rather than to create one from scratch. Burr has no interest in martyrdom and intends to achieve his goals by being patient and methodical and staying out of trouble. The tension between these characters and their constitutions is the story's central dramatic conflict (more on that later).

Burr was played by Sydney James Harcourt. Harcourt was Leslie Odom Jr.'s understudy until Odom left the show, which means he's had plenty of time to learn the role. The man is a fantastic dancer and does an impressive job of emoting with facial expressions. It's a testament to the skill of the makeup and lighting crews that these were clearly visible from 18 rows back.

Best number: "Wait For It." Not just Burr's best moment, but the best purely musical number in the show. Burr sums up and defends his life philosophy and makes you believe it, even though he's the antihero and you're not supposed to (don't worry, the remainder of the show is spent tearing it and him down).

Angelica Schuyler

Renée Elise Goldsberry played Angelica, Hamilton's eventual sister-in-law with whom he shared an ambiguously loving relationship. Goldsberry is one of the few original cast members who's still around, and she did a fantastic job. Angelica is a picture of duty above self-interest, and an intellectual stuck in a role where intellect is useless. Angelica finds Hamilton intriguing and the feeling is mutual, but she cedes him to her sister Eliza when she sees she's fallen in love with him at first sight. Angelica shares many of Burr's flaws and is every bit as compelling, but the story only has room to give her a little stage time. This is unfortunate; maybe the show's success will motivate someone to give her her own spinoff.

Best number: "Satisfied." This piece focused on unrequited love and unrequited ambition is Goldsberry's moment to shine, and shine she does--the woman can speak almost as fast as I can listen. It is also a shining moment for choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, since the number begins by rewinding the previous scene so we can view it again from Angelica's perspective. This is achieved by having the dancers go through their motions backwards and in reverse. Choreography is a black box to me, but I can tell when it's good.

Eliza Schuyler-Hamilton

Eliza, played by Lexi Lawson, is Angelica's sister and Hamilton's wife. The two meet, fall in love, and marry in a single whirlwind number. Eliza is a simpler character than her sister--we're told that she's trusting and kind, and her main role in the story is to encourage Alexander to take a break from his work once in a while and spend more time with his family. He doesn't listen, and eventually there are consequences.

Best number: "Burn." Even the kindest person has limits, and this is the scene where Eliza's patience with Hamilton finally reaches its end. Others might choose the more upbeat "Helpless," but I find dark numbers more interesting. Plus, this is the sequence that allows Eliza to be more than just an ingénue.

George Washington

Christopher Jackson's Washington owns the stage whenever he speaks. The man exudes authority with every word and every motion, and it's hard to imagine there was ever any hesitation about placing him in the role. Washington is honest and straightforward, and Jackson's movement and delivery reflect this. He walks directly from point A to point B with long, stage-eating strides, and his gestures are linear and unambiguous. This stands in contrast to the story's more wily characters who posture, embellish, and prance around in epicycles. Washington's introduction ("Right-Hand Man") is the most adrenaline-packed scene in the show--the fear and chaos are palpable as the Continental Army loses confrontation after confrontation to the sound of a distorted electric melody that brings Led Zeppelin's Kashmir to mind, and only authentic performances of the 1812 overture have more convincing canon blasts.

Best number: "One Last Time." Consistent with the character's forthrightness, Washington speaks, as opposed to rapping or singing, more than anyone else in the show. But when he does sing, he does it right. This rendition of Washington's farewell address, which uses the actual historical language rendered as song, is one of the show's highlights.

Thomas Jefferson

The real-life Jefferson was a hero of government and the intellect, but in this story he's an antagonist. Jefferson is fast-talking, self-satisfied, and not prepared to put up with much from a neophyte like Alexander Hamilton. The two disagree on the role of government, financial policy, and slavery. This sounds horribly boring, but one of the show's many achievements is that it manages to make cabinet meetings entertaining. At one point an impatient Jefferson delivers the line "can we get back to politics?" to a big laugh because, for once, you want to.

Jefferson was played by Andrew Chappelle. He plays the character a bit more flamboyantly than his predecessor Daveed Diggs, but it's a flamboyant role--Jefferson is from an older generation than Hamilton, and the writers chose to give him jazz themes to emphasize this.

Best number: "What'd I miss?" A jazzy piece that opens act two. Jefferson catches up on what happened while he was away in France and struts and postures to remind everyone that while he may have missed the war, he's still large and in charge.

* * * * *

Hamilton's lyrical style engages your brain. Its characters engage your emotions. But it's the conflicts within and between Hamilton and Burr that bring the two together and give the story its lasting impact.

Something you don't necessarily pick up on by listening to the soundtrack once or twice is that the show is the story of Alexander Hamilton as told by his friend-turned competitor-turned enemy-turned killer Aaron Burr. The two are set up as a study in contrasts. Where Hamilton is brash, unrestrained, and terrified of running out of time, Burr is cautious, measured, and patient. Hamilton never hesitates to take sides, Burr waits to see who's likely to win. Hamilton speaks his mind, Burr speaks to the room.

When the lights come up, we often discover Burr reclining bonelessly in a chair or against a railing, looking for all the world as though he'd been poured there out of a pitcher. And this is Burr in a nutshell--shapeless, unable to stand, liquid; flowing with gravity and shifting shape to fit whatever vessel he finds himself in (to push the analogy just a bit, if Burr is liquid, Hamilton is a gas--driven by his own pressure and kinetic energy to expand and fill whatever container he's placed in, occasionally shattering it in the process). Burr can't understand how Hamilton keeps surpassing him when he breaks all the rules, and Hamilton can't understand how Burr can exist so passively. "Talk less, smile more" is Burr's constant advice to Hamilton, who never quite manages to take it. Hamilton, for his part, wants to know "if you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?" Burr doesn't have an answer until very late in the story when he, in what is probably the show's most rousing dance number, realizes the only thing he really wants is "to be in the room where it happens." His ambition is ambition itself; to have a part--any part--in the narrative when the story is told. Evidently liquid ambition that stands for nothing falls for power and fame for their own sakes.

But the message isn't quite as cut-and-dried as "Hamilton equals good, Burr equals bad." If Hamilton is the more impressive character, Burr is the more interesting and the more relatable one. Miranda mentioned somewhere that early reviewers of the script suggested it might be too sympathetic to Burr; his response was that he himself has been Burr as often as he's been Hamilton. And this is where the story gets its power and its punch; how it insinuates itself into your mind, digs in, and refuses to let go. It forces you to confront the fact that you're running out of time just as surely as Alexander was, and makes you question whether you've used your time to be a Burr or a Hamilton. But more than that, it makes you question which one you want to be. Because even though Hamilton comes off as the hero when Miranda's Burr tells his story, he's a flawed one, and a little sober reflection reminds you that his accomplishments came at the expense of the people he loved, that everywhere he went he left a mess for someone else to clean up, and that his uncompromising drive made a widow out of his wife and deprived his children of their father when he was only 47. Are greatness and achievement worth this degree of collateral damage? Either for individuals or for new nations and old empires? The audience is left to decide for itself.

* * * * *

One final word regarding historical accuracy***. Hamilton is probably more true to the facts than Julius Caesar or Richard III are, for instance, but it's highly unlikely that the actual characters reacted to the actual events in precisely the ways depicted or attached the same significance to them. However, that's not the point. If you want history's best guess at the facts of Alexander Hamilton's life, read the biography by Ron Chernow that inspired the show. Theatre, on the other hand, is more concerned with telling true stories than factual ones, and musical theatre in particular recognizes that sometimes music and lyric can tell the human story more truthfully than the prosaic, quotidian way that it is actually experienced. Hamilton tells a true story, and it does so with both grace and power. Like Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club, it will knock you to your knees in an alley and point a gun at your head, then tell you reevaluate your life and walk away, and you'll thank it for doing so. It will inspire and accuse; it will astound and entertain. It does everything a good story should do, and I'm so glad I had the chance to see it.




* The effect is a bit reminiscent of the poems Bill Watterson would occasionally publish as Sunday editions of Calvin and Hobbes, for anyone who remembers those

** Speaking of Shakespeare, I won't pretend this is any great insight on my part since so many have had it, but there is something very Shakespearian about Hamilton's ability to shift seamlessly between the rough language of the common people and the high, lyrical prose of the court, its wordplay and occasional bawdy humor, and its ability to mine and ever-so-gently abuse history in order to tell a timeless story. Culture and the English language have moved on and Shakespeare today is largely the domain of academics, but I suspect the impression his plays made on their original 16th-century audiences was similar to the one Hamilton is making on contemporary ones.

*** I have deliberately glossed over the fact that none of the major characters in Hamilton are played by white people not because I consider it insignificant, but because it doesn't have the same impact on me that it does on those who've experienced actual racial discrimination in the nation it concerns itself with. However, I am perfectly prepared to take the word of, for example, those who've described the experience of seeing George Washington played seriously and unironically by a black man as "transformative." I found the story and its telling powerful and moving on their own, so I can only imagine what it must be like to have all that plus this particular bag of chips.

[Primula Baggins]

That was a beautiful, thorough, fascinating review, and very well written. Thank you. This is as close as I'll probably get to seeing any production of Hamilton, at least until the day a video comes out or a film is made. It does make me more determined to see it somehow, someday.

[Alatar]

That's a fab review Dave. I've only seen a bootleg, but would agree with everything you've written here. If anyone is interested in seeing it pm me!

[JewelSong]

Wow, Dave, what a fantastic review! I am determined to see Hamilton at some point during the next year. My huge regret is that I HAD the opportunity to see it in NY a couple of years ago (yes, with Miranda) when it was in previews...but it wasn't quite on my radar yet and so (alas and alack) I passed it by.

My daughter (who is a huge fan of the musical and has the entire soundtrack memorized) says that I simply must stop thinking about it.

Anyway, so glad you got a chance to see it and write about it!

[Lalaith]

http://abc7chicago.com/1374995/

Check out the name of the baby camel at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

[Primula Baggins]

Cute!

[Alatar]

Nervous as a kitten here waiting for Hamilton tickets to go on sale. Wish me luck! 9 more minutes....

[Jude]

Did you get them?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I hope so! Meanwhile, I am enjoying the image of Al being "nervous as a kitten".

[Alatar]

Oops thought I posted here already. Got 5 tickets for Thursday March 1st 2018. Happy Birthday to me!

[Jude]

Woot! Is this in London?