Hamilton

[lokifan]

A couple of my flatmate sodsta’s American cousins were in town this week, and yesterday they took us to see Hamilton! Which was really lovely of them - they were good seats too, in the stalls. I was a bit like “...but you said you saw Hamilton in Chicago? We’re theatre people, there are so many great musicals we could recommend!” but I’m glad it worked for them, haha, cos it was great. And it was my third time seeing it on-stage, so clearly it stands up to repeat viewing!


I wept copiously from ‘I did exactly what you said, Pa’ through It’s Quiet Uptown, unsurprisingly. And this was my favourite Hamilton and Jefferson I’ve seen - Hamilton a little more young, vulnerable, excitable, and Jefferson just incredibly good. He was comparatively fat, too, and I loved getting to see an actor with that build leap incredibly high into the air, and dance so fantastically, and show off what he could do.

Burr was interesting - less smooth voice-wise than the last Burr I saw, but it was definitely a deliberate choice and it really worked: the roughness came out in parts of Wait For It, showing his vulnerability, and then vanished for ‘I am the one thing in life I can control’.

I love the music history that works as metaphor for the overall story: King George very early Beatles (da da da da!) because he’s British and a creature of the past; Jefferson’s funk and ‘I guess I basically missed the late 80s’, cos yep, he’s missed the start of the nation/hip-hop. Then the bros sounding very old school hip-hop - ‘I’m John Laurens in the place to be’ - and Hamilton arrives with his polysyllabic rhymes to push them all forward into the next era.

sodsta hated the character of Hamilton, haha. The edge of fetishisation to his relationship with death, especially; sodsta’s got no time for martyrs, or the ambitious and arrogant. Not the first time I’ve seen people reactly v negatively to Hamilton - I remember my mum was like ‘I had no idea he was such a bastard’, though I think that was 99% about him cheating on & humiliating his wife.

It’s interesting how fast the musical’s aged. Like, it’s clearly gonna run and run and become a classic, but it’s extremely Obama-era in multiple ways. And as a Londoner, I feel the distance from pre-Brexit London. Like, ‘look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now/History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be in the greatest city in the world’. Not to be obnoxious to the New Yorkers reading, haha, but that felt true to me as a Londoner then, lucky to be in the greatest city in the world. Since Brexit, and as the effects of Tory austerity have destroyed so much arts funding, among other things, it doesn’t feel like that any more.

I do still find it inspirational, though. ‘Every action’s an act of creation.’

Comments

[pauraque]

I'm glad you had fun! It struck me funny that you saw this particular play with literal American Cousins. ("Our American Cousin" was the play Abraham Lincoln was seeing when he was assassinated.)

[lokifan]

Ahahaha! Omg, perfection.

[itsnotmymind]

Glad you enjoyed it. It's a very complex musical.

[lokifan]

It really is! Which is why it repays another viewing, of course.

And it's always interesting to me, seeing the little edits in lines or performances - I felt this one played up Hamilton & Laurens' relationship (which was potentially romantic in real life), and they've added a couple of little edits for the British crowd since the last time I saw it. e.g. "John Adams doesn't have a real job anyway" is now "Vice President is not a real job anyway", presumably cos they realised we didn't know who that was. Though I think the line was funnier before cos it seems bitchier with a person's name, haha.

[princessofgeeks]

Thanks for the insight into the deliberate messages in the styles of music; that went right past me!

I have only see the movie. I would love to see it live someday.

[lokifan]

Thanks for the insight into the deliberate messages in the styles of music; that went right past me!

Oh, glad to provide :) I definitely got that from Tumblr meta back in the day, to be fair, I don't know if I'd have realised otherwise. Though seeing it in person, King George's spotlight is quite flowery and 60s-esque where it projects onto the stage, which is a nice visual cue.

I would love to see it live someday.

So worth it! And actually if you're ever in London, West End tickets are a lot cheaper than Broadway.

[isis]

I also didn't realize the musical era progression, very neat!

I always thought it is a strange musical to put on or see outside the US - thanks for sharing your perspective. I also saw it on Broadway and was bowled over. Pretty much weeping through the last quarter, yep.

[lunabee34]

I'm glad you had a good time.

[lokifan]

Thanks <3 It was great!

[ceciliaj]

That breaks my heart what you say about London nowadays.

[lokifan]

It really feels different since Brexit :( And obviously the housing crisis and the effects of austerity were already fucking things up then, but there were still so many amazing people coming over, it still felt like such a centre of culture in so many ways. And things are so different now. Even just stuff like the way infrastructure's degraded under the Tories - NHS waiting lists, hungry kids, trains late or cancelled, polluted water scandals... Like a friend and I were saying the left-wing slogan should be "things don't have to be this shit." And I think London managed okay for a while and then couldn't any more under the weight of it.

[ravenna_c_tan]

I still haven't seen it on-stage! In the original LMM run it was impossible to get tickets, then COVID came... New York is only a 3.5 drive (or train ride) for me, but I just haven't been back to see anything on Broadway for years now. Last thing I saw was Puffs! (suuuuuch a great show in so many ways, especially for anyone steeped in Potter fandom) and before that Cursed Child, which we won't go back to because we don't do anything that puts money in JKR's pockets anymore.

Some day I'll see Hamilton...