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My mother recently discovered the musical Hamilton, and fell directly in love. She is now reading the Chernow biography and has also become a Hamilton/Laurens truther to rival the most dedicated of what fandom had to offer in 2015.
As a result of her obsession and her magnanimity -- "I really need someone to see it with who cares! Your father's coming but he won't care!" -- I spent a brief time in Chicago this past weekend with my parents (they were there for a conference) seeing my first actual live production of the show.
- I was not super impressed with either our Hamilton or our Burr; they were both perfectly fine performers, but our Burr was missing the kind of self-mocking irony that Leslie Odom Jr. brings to the cast album that makes his Burr so compelling, and didn't have any other particularly interesting take on the role to make up for it
- our Hamilton did have an interesting take -- he seemed to be playing a less impulsive and more calculating Alexander, nakedly ambitious in a way that was verged on cruel; I didn't really get any genuine feeling from him until "It's Quiet Uptown" -- but, uh, I didn't like it
- that said our Laurens | Philip was MAGNETIC, and I don't know if that's just that the actor was fantastic, or that the staging for Laurens draws the eye much more than that role does on the cast album, or a combination of both (no shade to Anthony Ramos, but when he's in a vocal crowd with Daveed Diggs and Okieriete Onaodowan I just don't end up paying him that much attention)
- (it could also just have been that I was primed to pay attention to Laurens by my mother peppering our pre-show dinner with paragraphs of the Hamilton-Laurens correspondence in order to demonstrate that there was no possible heterosexual explanation)
- my impression that Hercules Mulligan | Madison is the role that demands the most interesting demonstration of range from a performer remains confirmed
- I'd seen pictures of the set enough that I don't have a huge takeaway from it but the costuming, and the way it changed in accordance with the historical fashions, made a much bigger impression on me; something about the way it emphasizes the years disappearing in the back half of the show
- some small staging moments that were surprising or impactful to me:
- Lafayette hilariously steering Burr away to distract during "Farmer Refuted"
- the rewind staging on "Satisfied"; one of the most impressive bits of blocking I've seen onstage in a long time
- the bullet that misses Alexander in the first half of the show
- the staging of Jefferson above a bunch of Monticello slaves on the line "I can't believe that we are free"
- Madison irritably coming in halfway through "Washington On Your Side"
- King George hanging around to popcorn.gif after The Adams Administration and up through the Reynolds Pamphlet, which I think I had heard about but was beautiful to experience nonetheless
- "can we get back to politics?" "please" - I always heard that line on the cast album as exasperated, but MADISON IS CRYING, THAT'S ADORABLE
Overall: it was of course a good experience, but not transformative! I don't know if it would have been had I seen the original production four years ago, or not listened to the soundtrack often enough at this point that I had plenty of strong opinions and expectations already.
Side note: this was also my father's first time encountering Hamilton as anything other than the occasional song my mom played in the car. His opinion: "I wish there had been more about Philip Schuyler. I was really curious about that guy."
As a result of her obsession and her magnanimity -- "I really need someone to see it with who cares! Your father's coming but he won't care!" -- I spent a brief time in Chicago this past weekend with my parents (they were there for a conference) seeing my first actual live production of the show.
- I was not super impressed with either our Hamilton or our Burr; they were both perfectly fine performers, but our Burr was missing the kind of self-mocking irony that Leslie Odom Jr. brings to the cast album that makes his Burr so compelling, and didn't have any other particularly interesting take on the role to make up for it
- our Hamilton did have an interesting take -- he seemed to be playing a less impulsive and more calculating Alexander, nakedly ambitious in a way that was verged on cruel; I didn't really get any genuine feeling from him until "It's Quiet Uptown" -- but, uh, I didn't like it
- that said our Laurens | Philip was MAGNETIC, and I don't know if that's just that the actor was fantastic, or that the staging for Laurens draws the eye much more than that role does on the cast album, or a combination of both (no shade to Anthony Ramos, but when he's in a vocal crowd with Daveed Diggs and Okieriete Onaodowan I just don't end up paying him that much attention)
- (it could also just have been that I was primed to pay attention to Laurens by my mother peppering our pre-show dinner with paragraphs of the Hamilton-Laurens correspondence in order to demonstrate that there was no possible heterosexual explanation)
- my impression that Hercules Mulligan | Madison is the role that demands the most interesting demonstration of range from a performer remains confirmed
- I'd seen pictures of the set enough that I don't have a huge takeaway from it but the costuming, and the way it changed in accordance with the historical fashions, made a much bigger impression on me; something about the way it emphasizes the years disappearing in the back half of the show
- some small staging moments that were surprising or impactful to me:
- Lafayette hilariously steering Burr away to distract during "Farmer Refuted"
- the rewind staging on "Satisfied"; one of the most impressive bits of blocking I've seen onstage in a long time
- the bullet that misses Alexander in the first half of the show
- the staging of Jefferson above a bunch of Monticello slaves on the line "I can't believe that we are free"
- Madison irritably coming in halfway through "Washington On Your Side"
- King George hanging around to popcorn.gif after The Adams Administration and up through the Reynolds Pamphlet, which I think I had heard about but was beautiful to experience nonetheless
- "can we get back to politics?" "please" - I always heard that line on the cast album as exasperated, but MADISON IS CRYING, THAT'S ADORABLE
Overall: it was of course a good experience, but not transformative! I don't know if it would have been had I seen the original production four years ago, or not listened to the soundtrack often enough at this point that I had plenty of strong opinions and expectations already.
Side note: this was also my father's first time encountering Hamilton as anything other than the occasional song my mom played in the car. His opinion: "I wish there had been more about Philip Schuyler. I was really curious about that guy."
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I TOO am very excited for her, she's got so many years of back fandom output to trawl through!