![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jkustersI went with Allan (allanh) and Michael to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco this afternoon to see a matinee performance of the musical, "Hamilton."
I'm a fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda from his wonderful musical, "In The Heights," and was curious to see what he'd do with this more historical piece. I have worked hard to keep my ears "virginal" where Hamilton was concerned, avoiding all of the music and all of the videos from the show, all so I could see it as a single unified work.
I really wanted to love it.
I wound up simply liking it.
As I mentioned, I love "In The Heights". I'm not bothered by the "hip hop" or "rap" used by the show. The way Miranda uses it, it's really just rapid-fire patter with sometimes interesting rhythms and rhymes. My ear adjusts to it rather quickly, just like it does from good Shakespeare or other period pieces. The beauty of "Heights" is only partly the music. To me, a lot more of it is the wonderfully interwoven stories of people that just seem like people you'd meet on the street. Themes of family, connections, and finding one's place in the world just naturally flow out of the situations and the resolutions. Genuine moments of pathos that move me to tears.
Based on his previous work, and on the passion so many of my friends have for "Hamilton", was was prepared to be utterly entranced by it. Maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe I simply thought Miranda was a better artist than he shows in this work.
Don't get me wrong. So much of Hamilton is absolutely brilliant. There are parts of it that really blew me away. For the most part, the songs and the stories wove together into a seamless tapestry. Miranda's choice of using period costuming but modern day syntax and colloquialisms worked for me. Unlike "Heights" there was a strong dance component integrated throughout the show, and it was used very effectively in many places. Brilliant uses of turning back the clock and presenting scenes from different angles. And there were moments of transcendental beauty to me, such as a particular moment in the song, "Hurricane" where Hamilton is literally in the eye of a freeze-frame hurricane on stage, or in one of the pivotal duel scenes where "bullet time" from the Matrix movies is evoked live on stage.
A minor criticism I had of the work was the introductory scenes. They felt ham-handed, forced, so unlike "Heights". Somehow in "Heights" while Usnavi introduced himself with a certain amount of braggadocio, the rest of the introductions were smooth. That's the benefit, I guess, of employing a narrator for the story. But in "Hamilton," the introductions, especially when Hamilton is describing himself, were simplistic, crude, unsubtle. It was all telling, no showing. To me, that's a bit of a stumble right out of the box.
But the big criticisms I save for two characters in the show. King George, and Thomas Jefferson. King George is presented in the show as a simplistic fop, effeminate to a point of absurdity. Traipsing around the stage, "tra-la-la"-ing like some kind of vaudeville faggot. It was vile. I understand the point of showing how George comes from a different culture, and casting him as the enemy, but did Miranda have to stoop to using bad stereotypically gay behavior to indicate "here's the bad guy"? I mean, Lafayette was French yet he only had a (somewhat tortured) accent. Every number the King was in, I wanted to walk out of the theatre. King George may have been the enemy of the colonial army, but he deserved better treatment than that.
Jefferson doesn't fare much better. His introductory number made him seem like a brainless fool. I know Jefferson was no saint, but he was a brilliant man, highly educated, thoughtful. The caricature I saw on stage was anything but. The portrayal of the character became less egregious in the latter half of Act 2, but there were still hints of it. This man was the author of one of the most important and powerful documents in human history. I feel he too deserves better treatment than Miranda gave him.
So, all in all, a powerful and brilliant work, almost fatally flawed (in my mind) by some gut wrenching choices made by Miranda in character design. If he had made George a scheming "Snidely Whiplash" kind of character, and made Jefferson a brainy opponent instead of a foppish one, I probably would have loved it. As it was, I can only recommend the show with significant caveats.
allanh) and Michael to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco this afternoon to see a matinee performance of the musical, "Hamilton."I'm a fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda from his wonderful musical, "In The Heights," and was curious to see what he'd do with this more historical piece. I have worked hard to keep my ears "virginal" where Hamilton was concerned, avoiding all of the music and all of the videos from the show, all so I could see it as a single unified work.
I really wanted to love it.
I wound up simply liking it.
As I mentioned, I love "In The Heights". I'm not bothered by the "hip hop" or "rap" used by the show. The way Miranda uses it, it's really just rapid-fire patter with sometimes interesting rhythms and rhymes. My ear adjusts to it rather quickly, just like it does from good Shakespeare or other period pieces. The beauty of "Heights" is only partly the music. To me, a lot more of it is the wonderfully interwoven stories of people that just seem like people you'd meet on the street. Themes of family, connections, and finding one's place in the world just naturally flow out of the situations and the resolutions. Genuine moments of pathos that move me to tears.
Based on his previous work, and on the passion so many of my friends have for "Hamilton", was was prepared to be utterly entranced by it. Maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe I simply thought Miranda was a better artist than he shows in this work.
Don't get me wrong. So much of Hamilton is absolutely brilliant. There are parts of it that really blew me away. For the most part, the songs and the stories wove together into a seamless tapestry. Miranda's choice of using period costuming but modern day syntax and colloquialisms worked for me. Unlike "Heights" there was a strong dance component integrated throughout the show, and it was used very effectively in many places. Brilliant uses of turning back the clock and presenting scenes from different angles. And there were moments of transcendental beauty to me, such as a particular moment in the song, "Hurricane" where Hamilton is literally in the eye of a freeze-frame hurricane on stage, or in one of the pivotal duel scenes where "bullet time" from the Matrix movies is evoked live on stage.
A minor criticism I had of the work was the introductory scenes. They felt ham-handed, forced, so unlike "Heights". Somehow in "Heights" while Usnavi introduced himself with a certain amount of braggadocio, the rest of the introductions were smooth. That's the benefit, I guess, of employing a narrator for the story. But in "Hamilton," the introductions, especially when Hamilton is describing himself, were simplistic, crude, unsubtle. It was all telling, no showing. To me, that's a bit of a stumble right out of the box.
But the big criticisms I save for two characters in the show. King George, and Thomas Jefferson. King George is presented in the show as a simplistic fop, effeminate to a point of absurdity. Traipsing around the stage, "tra-la-la"-ing like some kind of vaudeville faggot. It was vile. I understand the point of showing how George comes from a different culture, and casting him as the enemy, but did Miranda have to stoop to using bad stereotypically gay behavior to indicate "here's the bad guy"? I mean, Lafayette was French yet he only had a (somewhat tortured) accent. Every number the King was in, I wanted to walk out of the theatre. King George may have been the enemy of the colonial army, but he deserved better treatment than that.
Jefferson doesn't fare much better. His introductory number made him seem like a brainless fool. I know Jefferson was no saint, but he was a brilliant man, highly educated, thoughtful. The caricature I saw on stage was anything but. The portrayal of the character became less egregious in the latter half of Act 2, but there were still hints of it. This man was the author of one of the most important and powerful documents in human history. I feel he too deserves better treatment than Miranda gave him.
So, all in all, a powerful and brilliant work, almost fatally flawed (in my mind) by some gut wrenching choices made by Miranda in character design. If he had made George a scheming "Snidely Whiplash" kind of character, and made Jefferson a brainy opponent instead of a foppish one, I probably would have loved it. As it was, I can only recommend the show with significant caveats.