To most of the country, today, July 3, is Independence Day observed. It’s also, for theater fans around the world, #Hamilday. Not a federal holiday, technically. But for people around the world lacking a way or the means to drop a couple hundred bucks to see Hamilton on Broadway or on tour—productions that have been shuttered since mid-March, and will be closed through at least the start of 2021 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic—it’s certainly something to celebrate: a film of the original Broadway cast of the Grammy-, Pulitzer Prize–, and 11-time Tony-winning musical Hamilton, available to stream on Disney+, which charges a $6.99 monthly access fee. Raise a glass to accessibility.
The film was originally set for an Oct. 15, 2021, release. Then, in mid-May—after we’d been through a couple months without theater or live entertainment or even human contact of any kind—composer-lyricist-star Lin-Manuel Miranda tweeted the happy news about the way-early debut (see—sometimes Twitter can be used for good!). You know the man who penned the lyric “America, you great unfinished symphony” picked Fourth of July weekend purposely. As he says in a roundtable (also available on Disney+) with his costars and director Thomas Kail, “The thesis of this story was always the story of America then told by America now.” To quote one of Miranda’s songs, “History has its eyes on you.”
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★★ review here.]
But the big question: How does it look? If you’ve seen the show, it’s pretty much just as you remember. And if you haven’t, it feels like you’re right there in the Richard Rodgers Theatre, sometimes in the center orchestra, sometimes in the first row, sometimes in the front row of the mezzanine. (The sound, regrettably, isn’t as well modulated as in the theater. So unless your TV is hooked up to a great sound system, keep your remote handy so you can jack up the volume for the quieter scenes.)
The filming was done over a few performances (including one without an audience) in late June 2016, using six cameras, allowing Kail, editor Jonah Moran, and director of photography Declan Quinn to capture the musical’s subtle but constant motion. From the moment our narrator, the villain Aaron Burr (Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr.)—has Broadway ever seen a more sympathetically drawn villain?—introduces his frenemy Alexander Hamilton (Miranda) until his bullet strikes Hamilton dead, the show almost never stops spinning. Literally. (A metaphor for the ever-evolving country that our Founding Fathers were building?) Of course David Korins’ turntable-powered set has a hand in that, but Andy Blankenbuehler’s Tony-winning choreography, sleek and angular, might be Hamilton’s driving force. And it looks even sharper here than it does on stage; “My Shot” is especially explosive, and “The Room Where It Happens”—Burr’s jealous ode to Hamilton’s backroom bartering with Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan)—is an almost magical ballet unto itself.
The performances—especially Tony winners Diggs, who also plays Hamilton’s pal the Marquis de Lafayette, and Renée Elise Goldsberry, as Hamilton’s sister-in-law (and unrequited love) Angelica Schuyler—are virtually flawless, super-polished but not veneered. And the score, which has always been electric, resonates like it may not have before. Take the lyrics of “My Shot.” Burr: “If you talk, you’re gonna get shot!” John Laurens (Anthony Ramos): “But we’ll never be truly free/ Until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me.” Hamilton: “Are we a nation of states? What’s the state of our nation?” Whether Hamilton is, as first lady Michelle Obama said, “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life,” is for you to decide. Debate with your friends. Have a Jefferson and Madison–style mic-dropping Cabinet Battle about it. This film only further proves one of Miranda’s most prophetic lyrics: “This is not a moment, it’s the movement.”
Hamilton, the filmed version of the original Broadway production, will be streamed beginning July 3, 2020, at disneyplus.com
