Yeah, s’ok.
RSC meets RZA.
Even going in with the highest expectations, I found myself surprised and expectations exceeded. Lin-Manuel Miranda made one of the most glorious, joyous moments of theatre I’ve ever known from a powercut! Now he’s tackling the founding and history of America, of course it was going to be good…
Might just be me, but I’m coming at this show as me – a pretentious British theatre snob – so to begin I’d like to talk quickly about why I found the staging so exciting: because the precedents it follows are the radical, revolutionary theatre we’re still following today. If you don’t mind (mods, I think all these photos are official):
Hamilton, and Jesus Christ Superstar, 1971:
Hamilton, and two typical prductions of Brecht's Epic Theatre: Threpenny Opera and Caucasian Chalk Circle:
Hamilton, and Peter Brook's Timon D’Athènes:
And the image that stuck with me most. Hamilton, and the production that immediately preceded/inspired Les Mis by Nunn and Caird at the RSC, another example of Brecht’s epic theatre theory in practice, David Edgar’s Nicholas Nickleby:
I don’t think for a second that Hamilton was based on specifics here – but I think it was inspired by this type of theatre. Why would they stage Hamilton with the back wall so visible, the sets so minimal and the multi-rolling so transparent, if not to follow the traditions of these theatremakers? It deserves to be placed in THIS theatrical history as much as as the next Bye Bye Birdie. Yes great transgressive (and conventional) musicals are in its DNA, but more than just that, Brecht’s Epic Theatre, Brook’s Empty Space, Nunn and Caird’s Minimalist Musicals are in its DNA. I felt (and I felt this, differently, during In The Heights) that thrill of the demands theatre places on its audience – to imagine together, to risk together, and to be together. I think that’s why this has touched such a (inter)national nerve – because it’s a staging that puts us on equal footing to George Washington and King George, via these stripped-back precedents. Whether Miranda or Thomas Kail, it’s amazing to watch a musical take after the empty space.
The final duel, for example, is nothing but a Wooden O, an uncostumed actress as a bullet, time standing still, Hamilton narrating outside the narrative. I struggle to think of something else so bold and bare in its storytelling theatricalism and honestly the last thing I can think of is Brook’s Battlefield. THIS IS NOW A BLOCKBUSTER! Or, more thrillingly, the moment of the show, “Satisfied”. On an empty stage, we’ve got few signifiers and nothing literal, but a story vividly retold via its casting – and then from mixtaping, that rewind comes in, leading into an extraordinary quickfire rap rewrite of everything we saw before as that Wooden O rotates and roles are recast and rap rewinds together! It comes what, 30 minutes in, but it revolutionises everything that comes before – and sets way for an ending which suggest that, however much we may “erase ourselves out of the narrative”, we still have a story that deserves to be written about. It’s ingenious. You could watch Hamilton with no sound and it says it all!
But, um, seeing Hamilton without the sound… The lyrical genius of In The Heights is that “When You’re Home” or the Finale pack an awful lot of self-reflection and profound musings on home and family into seemingly conversational situations. The genius of Hamilton is it packs an AWFUL LOT of self-reflection into a) a 600-page biography and b) a potted history of America via American music. And yeah, Lin-Manuel’s a smartypants. But its several messages – of national identity; freedom; family; and biography itself of a sort – wouldn’t work if it was merely meretricious. I couldn’t begin to pick apart the influences and references that litter this, but I didn’t need to to have my heart broken by this. It’s never cleverer-than-thou.
(And I’ve not got great hearing, and I’d estimate I caught 95% of it – so hooray for whoever’s helping with diction and mixing the sound!)
And something else I’ve noticed about Miranda – at least from his two masterpieces – is he gives his piece an overall musical shape, then every character a) a leitmotif and b) a musical voice, and weaves these together. I think the rap/balladeering of "When You’re Home" is still my favourite example, but here, isn't that true too?
(I'm cutting this short as I wouldn't know where to begin when discussing rap/hip-hop. I only learnt about rap when, back at uni, one of my professors proved how relevant Homer was by rapping untranslated Iliad over Illmatic. This might sound like I'm trying to create a smartarse pun. I'm not. This happened.)
Obviously I saw this a lot later than most of you, but I thought Weston’s performance was really nifty. He’s got this lithe and versatile physicality, and through that I really thought we saw him age – young scrappy and hungry at the start, but tall and established from act two onwards. Alongside dancing/rapping, which he did with brilliance and conviction, I felt he aged and adapted to adulthood with great sophistication. Compared to him Sifiso Mazibuko as Salieri (saw the understudy) is a rock, ‘adult’ when we meet him and flawed because of his inflexibility (up until "The Room Where It Happens", what a canny number) – and I loved THAT contrast (is Terrera like this?). I also did think Pennycooke probably deserved the Olivier more than George III (also saw his understudy), his LaFayette the accessible pantomime this intelligent show needs and his Jefferson a cool mid-point between the extremes of Burr and Hamilton and actually the most fascinating man on stage. But this late in the run I’d argue it’s totally Weston’s show, telling his story to the back of the circle with total physicality (although, bless this show, John McRae should have won).
That’s my conclusion, as I desperately try to say something original about Hamilton years after the fact. The foundations upon which Hamilton are based are so steeped in this rich and radical history that, years from now, it will work and work and work, still feeling theatrical (as amongst other blockbusters, I’d argue, Prince’s Phantom doesn’t work anymore but Nunn and Caird’s Les Mis still does). And selfishly, as someone who’s been going to the theatre for so long and now sees THIS and THOSE INFLUENCES as the hot-ticket in town, GET IN! It’s an astonishing piece of total theatre. Lin-Manuel Miranda is two-for-two on the genius scoreboard for me (contemporaneously, I think only Annie Baker’s his equal there). This story of the life of Alexander Hamilton is the story of the American ideal and making history itself, but the telling of this life (with all those precedents) makes it an emotional gut-punch, a masterpiece.
And then. That ending. It’s a show that, in its final Schuyler song, completely retells what came before. The medium has been the message, in casting it’s spent two hours asking who lives who dies who tells your story. Yet it ends with Eliza – trusting, kind, silently resigned – as this song’s protagonist, and thus this musical’s protagonist, arguing that everyone on stage has a revisionist musical to be told about them. Whether we erase ourselves out of the narrative, or future historians don’t focus on us for race or gender or class or era or any reason, Hamilton asks us to look around, look around, and ask who else in current narratives needs to stand centre-stage. It’s just mind-boggling. Suddenly it’s about who quietly leaves a mark on history too. That final tableau, Eliza front and centre stage, relocating the entire story to the quietest yet most vital person on stage, absolutely broke me.
So, yeah, quite good, quite clever, three stars. Think Lin-Manuel might do quite well for himself.
P.S. To avoid spoilers, I’ve completely avoided this board. Does that mean I really spent, oh, five-six hours reading this whole thread on pricing and understudies? Course not…
P.P.S. I haven’t read the Hamilton hubbub, but I do want to read esp. about its creation. So got some qs. 1) Does anyone know the order in which the songs were written – I’m thinking especially was that last song always the last song? 2) Does Chernow’s biography end similarly? 3) What are the best things to read/buy about the show? Christmas is around the corner so recommend expensive things please!
P.P.P.S. If people are laughing at George here, but not in America, SO WHAT? Theatre changes with its audience. I’ve no doubt certain lines meant more to Americans, what with it BEING CALLED Hamilton: An AMERICAN Musical. Besides,
What comes next? You’ve been ‘freed’. Do you know how hard it is to lead?
You’re on your own. Awesome. Wow! Do you have a clue what happens now?
Oceans rise. Empires fall. It’s much harder when it’s all your call
All alone, across the sea. When your people say they hate you Don’t come crawling back to me
You’re on your own…
After June 23rd 2016, these lines mean a different thing over here.
P.P.P.P.S. Also, after the renovation, lovely loos! Very old fashioned cubicles. I am not throwing away my sh*t.
P.P.P.P.P.S. Because In The Heights seems a slighter work, I hope the genius of that show isn’t completely overshadowed. In The Heights broadens and expands the inner lives of everyday New York immigrants to the highest, most important, and most enjoyable of arts, and that’s as exciting as doing it for Kings and Presidents – indeed, it takes a certain mind to take “negotiating debt plans” and “running a dispatch box” and make equally stunning musical numbers from these moments. However good Hamilton is, one of my favourite individual moments of theatre ever will always be the Carnival.