TIL FEB 9

10
Jamael Westman (Alexander Hamilton) with West End cast of Hamilton.
Photos: Matthew Murphy.
HAMILTON Victoria Palace
Not since My Fair Lady or, more
recently the over-rated Book of Mormon,
has a Broadway musical carried such an
overwhelming weight of hype and
expectation as Hamilton.
The equivalent of a theatrical second
coming, the event has garnered the kind
of reputation it is now impossible to
justify. More column inches have been
written about it than any other show I
can recall, while the reverence, fervour
and commitment it induces in its legion
of worshippers is more characteristic of
a rock concert or a Billy Graham-like
revivalist meeting than a stage show.
Before a single note was sung, the
dimming of the house lights cued a
deafening ground-swell of whoops and
screams turning the magnificently
refurbished Victoria Palace into a shrine
rather than a theatre. The audience had
come to witness a miracle and what they
got instead was a smart, exuberant,
confident, informative (but flawed)
game-changing birth of a notion about
the birth of a nation.
As probably every infant in its crib
knows by now, the musical’s eponymous
hero, Alexander Hamilton (Jamael
Westman), was ‘a bastard, orphan son of
a whore and a Scotsman’ born in 1857
out of wedlock in the West Indies and
taken in by a wealthy merchant who,
recognising his intelligence and ability,
packed him off to New York to further
his education.
A college drop-out, he played a major
role in the American Revolutionary War
and became America’s first secretary to
the Treasury. Or, as the show’s creator
Lin-Manuel Miranda has him say ‘Hey,
yo, I’m just like my country/I’m young,
scrappy and hungry/And I’m not
throwing away my shot.’ His ‘shot’ also
included becoming George Washington’s
senior aide, practicing law, and founding
the Bank of New York.
Hamilton is not the first Broadway
musical to be set in the 18th century.
1776, which premiered in 1969,
dramatised the events leading up to the
signing of America’s declaration of
independence and also featured Thomas
Jefferson. But, where 1776 was a
thoroughly conventional well-crafted
show, it broke no new ground and, not
surprisingly, its subject matter failed to
find an audience when it transferred to the
West End. Only time will tell if Hamilton,
once its novelty value evaporates, will
continue indefinitely to enthrall British
audiences. Let’s face it, the Brits hardly
emerge smelling of roses.
Right now, though, what makes
Hamilton the unique experience it is,
is the boldly invigorating way Miranda
mirrors the fiery furnace of change in
late 18th century American politics with
the heady, persistent beat of
contemporary rap, hip-hop, rock opera
and R & B with occasional references
to other Broadway musicals thrown in
as an hommage to a genre Miranda
loves while at the same time, is busy
redefining. And given America’s vast
immigrant population, to which the show
pays tribute, his predominantly multiracial
cast makes perfect sense.
The non-stop pace at which history
evolves is further echoed in the
perpetual motion of Thomas Kail’s
direction and in Andy Blankenbuehler’s
choreography, whose use of a revolving
stage, against the wooden, tavern-like
backdrop of David Korins’ all-purpose
set, is an apt metaphor for the giddy
spin of the politics of the period.
It’s a great concept, to be sure,
effectively juxtaposed with Miranda’s
dizzyingly clever lyrics. Here’s a man, to
paraphrase Will Rogers, who never met
a rhyme he didn’t like. They’re witty and
often ingenious but not always character
driven. After a while, there’s a sameness
to them, often turning characters such as
the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas
Jefferson (both flamboyantly played by
Jason Pennycooke) into caricatures.
Especially falling into this category is
King George III, who, in an unashamedly
Michael Jibson (King George).
t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g a z i n e • t h i s i s l o n d o n o n l i n e