Given the ephemeral and altogether unmatchable power of live theater at its best, the notion of transforming your living room or kitchen table into “the room where it happens” has never seemed within the realm of reason. But in this, the fourth month of the plague, the Disney-streamed film version of the original Broadway production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton does just that. The material, the production, and the tense tenor of these treacherous times combine to make this the right thing at the right moment. Hamilton soars, precisely as it has since it first leaped up off the stage of the Public Theater in the winter of 2015. But for several reasons, it brings along extra-theatrical resonance just now.
It is at this point unnecessary, critically—in terms of reviewing, not in terms of importance—to discuss Hamilton as if were something new and unknown. The show was, and remains, superlative, both in the context of musical theater and as a one-of-a-kind cultural event. (An opening night review of the 2015 Broadway production can be read here.)
Miranda’s magnum opus—thus far, anyway, as the 40-year-old wunderkind gives full evidence of not being fated to be a so-called “one-hit wonder”—is built on several key assets: The innovative variety of the pulsing musical score; the cornucopious abundance of words—incisive, informative, poetical or boisterous as desired, with a pinpoint clarity infrequently experienced in musical theater; and the sheer exuberance of Miranda’s canny theatricality. Watching the streamed show on the computer screen—after three or four in-person visits—I appreciate even more how the author’s quicksilver ingenuity was likely abetted by suggestions and contributions from his close collaborators, director Thomas Kail and music director/orchestrator Alex Lacamoire.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Just before the dispersal of the altogether dynamic original cast in July 2016, the author and the stage producing team (led by Jeffrey Seller) made the understandable decision to capture the production in perpetuity by filming the show in performance. Given the money flowing into the show, with its multimillion dollar weekly grosses, little technological expense seems to have been spared to make this a high-caliber enterprise. The cameras sat through two performances—complete with the enthusiastically over-the-top adulation commonly emanating from the throngs at the Rodgers—and went back later for close-ups. (In random spots, one is almost thrown by the lack of laughter or any response whatsoever.)
This filmed rendition—with stage director Kail doing an impressive job behind the camera—has now been taken out of the can, as it were, and released for public consumption. This is not a film version of Hamilton, per se; there will no doubt eventually be a Hamilton movie, which will surely be as dynamic as the stage show so long as Mr. Miranda remains in total control. What this is, literally, is a phenomenal film of the phenomenal stage show.
All Broadway shows—those which run long enough, that is—eventually see a parade of replacement players. Said replacements are by and large strong enough to make the roles their own. Hamilton has reportedly remained every bit as powerful since the original players started to depart after six months, with no complaints being heard from patrons of the road tours and West End company. (The same can be said for the rollicking The Book of Mormon, which replaced its original stars back in 2012 but on my last viewings in both New York and London remains pristine fresh.)
That said, the original cast of Hamilton is indeed unparalleled, or at least likely unparalleled. Many of these actors worked with Miranda and Kail in the several preliminary workshop productions of the show, as well as the pre-Broadway production at the Public Theater. Thus it can be understood how certain aspects of the characters-as-written were developed on these actors’ bodies, as it were.
Take Daveed Diggs. The unworldly flourishes layered upon his performance in the dual roles of Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson border on brilliance. One imagines that most of this stage business has been replicated by the dozens of performers who have subsequently stepped Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography and donned Paul Tazewell’s Francophiled togs. It seems safe to say, though, that the role of Lafayette/Jefferson—as it appears in the published script of Hamilton—is closely molded around the performing personality of the originating actor.
This goes, as well, for the majority of the players: Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr; Phillipa Soo as Hamilton’s bride, Eliza; Renée Elise Goldsberry as sister-in-law Angelica; Christopher Jackson as Washington; and more, including the many ensemble members who have dynamic moments of their own. Not to mention Miranda himself, who imbues the title character with a personality and playfulness presumably not derived from Ron Chernow’’s 2004 biography of the Founding Father on the ten-dollar bill. This is not to overlook Jonathan Groff’s altogether delectable King George, although I for one have never been able to get the image of Brian d’Arcy James—who created the role at the Public, eliciting roars from the audience and me with a mere lift of half an eyebrow—out of my memory.
In a short sequence of introductory comments from Miranda and Kail in quarantine, the latter comments, “I feel like we made something that spoke to the moment when we made it, and also can speak to the moment now.”
They did, and yes, it most definitely does.
Hamilton, the filmed version of the original Broadway production, will be streamed beginning July 3, 2020 at disneyplus.com
