Around three hours before curtain for “Hamilton” while back in our hotel room, my mom looked at me with nervous eyes.
“I should probably go ahead and tell you this, so if you get upset, you can get it over with.”
I nodded for her to go on, thinking that a pet had died, or maybe a friend of hers was sick.
“Just so you know, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s not going to be in the show tonight,” she said, regretfully. “He’s on vacation.”
I considered her words for a split second, and easily decided, “It doesn’t matter. I’m so excited to be going, and I can’t bring myself to be upset.”
After another moment, I continued, “But Leslie Odom Jr. is still going to be on, right?”
We looked it up, he was set to appear and that was that.
When George Washington’s understudy appeared on the leaflets in the Playbill, we cared even less.
We were one of the lucky few.
We had tickets to see “Hamilton.”
The feel of the present-day Richard Rodgers Theatre is unlike any other Broadway experience I’ve ever had.
The front row tickets are raffled off daily to a select few, who only have to pay $10 for a seat. Everyone in the row behind them likely paid upward of $2,000 for the privilege.
To put it simply, everyone in the audience either wanted to be there incredibly badly or has more money than they know what to do with. They sing the score word-for-word at the stage door. They inflate the show by a good five minutes of applause, not counting the curtain call.
I went into “Hamilton” knowing the cast recording by heart.
I’m so glad that I did, because the staging of the show is so inspired that I was beyond entertained and amazed to focus on the way the director and choreographer had interpreted the musical.
There was one moment during “What Comes Next?” — the first reprise of King George III’s British pop breakup song to the Founding Fathers — where the now-departed Jonathan Groff sang, “They say the price of my war’s not a price that they’re willing to pay. Insane! You cheat with the French, now I’m fighting with France and with Spain.”
At the end of the next line, “I’m so blue,” the distinguished figure stomps his high-heeled slipper on the ground and shakes his head toward the lighting booth.
The magenta lights switched on command to a sullen blue.
I lived.
Another moment that has really stuck with me happens during Hamilton’s calm before the storm in Act II, “Hurricane.”
There is a moment in the score where the notes start to hang. It sounds like time has momentarily slowed down.
In this instant, the ensemble positions the pieces of set and props, along with their bodies, forming the eye of the hurricane to surround Hamilton.
It resembled something out of the tornado scene in “The Wizard of Oz” placed on pause, but it also made me want to cry in pure awe of the artistry.
The most impressive moment of the night was easily “Satisfied,” a song that is both incredibly ambitious and equally as successful.
“Satisfied” lets the audience in on the thought process of Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s eventual sister-in-law, who decides in a split second that neither she nor Hamilton will be ultimately fulfilled in a relationship.
This doesn’t mean that she isn’t tempted to keep Hamilton for herself because she says, “So this is what it feels like to match wits/With someone at your level! What the hell is the catch? It’s/The feeling of freedom, of seein’ the light/It’s Ben Franklin with a key and a kite! You see it, right?”
She decides to introduce him to her sister, Eliza, instead, and then immediately regrets her decision to give up on the only man she has ever met who could match her wit and intelligence.
All of the choreography from “Helpless,” Eliza’s account of the night when she and Angelica first met Hamilton, and the song immediately preceding “Satisfied,” is reversed onstage like it’s in the world’s smoothest VHS player and then replayed.
Throughout most of the song, Angelica stands center stage to rap lyrics that are, according to Miranda, “some of the most intricate I’ve ever written. I can’t even rap them, but Renee Elise Goldsberry, who plays Angelica — that’s her conversational speed.”
While the entire scene is repeating around her, Angelica floats above it all. As evidenced by the ultimately incomparable pace and depth of her inner monologue, she is the smartest person in the room but can’t bring herself to show it.
####Don’t be scared of the standbys
As for Javier Munoz, Miranda’s standby who played the title character, I have absolutely no complaints.
Anyone who listens to musical theater cast albums as obsessively as I do knows the feeling of knowing the score of a show a hair too well while watching the live production. There can be a gaping lack of surprise or a strange disconnect when an actor’s voice is very different from an original cast member.
Munoz’s Hamilton isn’t a carbon copy of Miranda’s, but what he lacks in puppy dog eyes and comfort in the role, he makes up with an extra edge of sex appeal.
I haven’t been able to describe this better than The New York Times, which said, ““Mr. Muñoz’s Hamilton palpably tries harder than Mr. Miranda’s does — except when he’s courting the ladies. Then he’s a natural, and when other characters describe him as a tomcat, you know exactly what they mean.”
####Wait for it
If you find yourself in New York anytime soon, and are lucky enough to snag “Hamilton” tickets, don’t be disappointed to find a few replacements in the cast.
Don’t worry if you can’t see yourself making it to the show for several years, or even a decade, “Hamilton” is here to stay. If a silly jukebox musical rom com featuring the music of a mediocre 70’s Swedish pop group can run for 14 years on Broadway, not to mention touring productions, Hamilton will still be here for you to experience when you are ready.
_Edited by Katie Rosso | krosso@themaneater.com_
