Revolutionary viewing

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This article was published 03/07/2020 (2108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Admittedly, watching Lin-Manuel Miranda’s historical musical Hamilton might have not been the most appropriate way to spend Canada Day.

But at this point in time, one doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And make no mistake, Hamilton, the multiple-Tony-lauded story of one of America’s founding fathers told in the musical milieus of hip-hop, rap, and jazz, is a gift that arrives at just the right time, even beyond its U.S. Independence Day-adjacent release.

For the past few years, it has been the hottest ticket on Broadway. Typically, shows that achieve that level of success take years or even decades to become available through the convenience of a screen medium. (Hits such as Wicked or The Book of Mormon remain inaccessible to us prairie folk, except via the occasional touring show.)

Keep in mind, a movie version of Hamilton is likely still forthcoming. This is a filmed performance in New York City’s Richard Rodgers Theatre, shot over three days in June 2016, mostly — but not entirely — before a live audience.

Cinephiles may consider this a placeholder but for theatre aficionados, it’s a vital record of a potent work.

One can’t help feel there is a spirit of generosity at work here, even if the show has closed on Broadway — only because all of Broadway is closed right now. Disney ponied up US$75 million for the privilege of presenting it, with the intention of taking it to movie theatres next year.

Releasing it on the Disney Plus streaming service instead just now was the right thing to do, not just because of the pandemic. Hamilton offers a reassuring glimpse at the origins of the American government at a time when that very institution seems to be on a suicide track.

Cast largely with “black and brown people”— as Miranda himself puts it in the play’s optional introduction — the musical facilitates timely ownership of a history that typically ignores or discounts non-white people.

First-generation Puerto Rican-American writer-composer-lyricist Miranda also plays the titular “10-dollar founding father without a father,” Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant who comes to America, avails himself of an education and hustles his way into fighting at the side of George Washington (Christopher Jackson), essentially getting in on the ground floor of… America.

He marries the beautiful and dutiful Eliza (Phillipa Soo) even as he carries a torch for Eliza’s sister, Angelica (Renée Elise Goldsberry). He also has a strange friendly/hostile relationship with future vice-president Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.), a man whose ambition matches Hamilton’s. But without Hamilton’s ideological centre, Burr is a comparative shell of a man.

The 160-minute running time covers a lot of ground, but it flies by, owing to the show’s startling creativity.

Miranda employs anachronism as a weapon. For example, Hamilton’s debates with Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs, delightful) take the form of rap battles, because what better musical genre is there for the ranks of the oppressed? The only time it really resembles a traditional Broadway musical is when King George (Jonathan Groff) takes to the stage to sing a threatening ditty about how the king’s love may manifest itself in wholesale murder if the colony isn’t careful.

The play’s director, Thomas Kail, also helms this filmed version, using the services of cinematographer Declan Quinn, and he exercises fine judgement, knowing how to capture the spectacle in the wide shots, and how to employ close-ups for maximum emotional impact. A climactic shot of Soo, for example, guarantees a tear or two, assuming you’re not an empty vessel like Burr… or any other American politician who may come to mind.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing