Victoria Palace, London Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rollercoaster of a show boasts outstanding performances and charts the life of the US founding father with political passion and nimble wit
A Hollywood mogul, offered a musical about America’s founding fathers, once said: “People don’t want a show with wigs.” One of the many joys of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s much-heralded musical is that it offers us history de-wigged: it’s a rollercoaster of a show in which a bare-headed, largely non-white cast capture the fervour and excitement of revolution while reminding us how much America’s identity was shaped by a buccaneering immigrant, Alexander Hamilton.
What is astonishing is how well the form fits the subject: Miranda’s use of rap, hip-hop and R&B becomes the ideal vehicle for exploring the birth of a nation.
‘This isn't colour-blind casting’: Hamilton makes its politically charged West End debut Read more
Hamilton, as we’re told from the outset, is “a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman” who leaves the Caribbean to become George Washington’s right-hand man, a key interpreter of the constitution and secretary of the treasury. He marries well, overcomes a sex scandal and dies in a duel with his rival Aaron Burr who is his nemesis and the show’s narrator. But, while Hamilton is the story’s pivot, he is also part of a musical that, like the nation itself, seems in perpetual motion.
Miranda’s music and lyrics combine two things that rarely go together: political passion and nimble wit. Hamilton early on tells us: “I’m just like my country. I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.” These lines are echoed by the whole ensemble in a terrific revolutionary anthem, Yorktown, in which the victorious American troops appropriate a traditional British ballad, The World Turned Upside Down.
Miranda’s lyrics, which include references to Shakespeare and WS Gilbert, are full of verbal dexterity. Burr, surveying the nostalgie de la boue of the Schuyler sisters, tells us: “There’s nothing rich folks love more than goin’ downtown and slummin’ it with the poor.” In a show that glories in language, “Boston” is rhymed with “cost n’” and “lost n’”. Two numbers, particularly, symbolise Miranda’s superb mental agility. George III – played by Michael Jibson as a figure of ineffable absurdity – surveys the political infighting after Washington’s resignation with unholy relish. Crying: “Jesus Christ, this will be fun,” he jigs as if, under all the royal regalia, he were a closeted rocker.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Schuyler sisters … Rachelle Ann Go (Eliza), Rachel John (Angelica) and Christine Allado (Peggy). Photograph: Matthew Murphy
The outstanding number, however, is Burr’s The Room Where It Happens. This takes a politically complex subject: the secret deal in which Hamilton accepted the idea of Washington DC as the nation’s capital in exchange for federal control over the debts accrued by the separate states. Miranda turns it into a number of rapidly accelerating momentum about Burr’s desire to be in the room at the time of the deal – and about the mystery of history. The song, referencing Someone in a Tree from Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, shows Miranda’s deep roots in America’s musical past.
There are times in the second half when the show’s virtuosity becomes a little taxing. I’m also not sure that Miranda, who acknowledges the influence of Ron Chernow’s biography, ever fully establishes the difference between Jefferson’s vision of America as an agrarian paradise and Hamilton’s as one of urban entrepreneurship. But this is a show that, in Thomas Kail’s production and in Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography, moves with intoxicating speed and combines historical sweep with attention to detail: one tiny example is the way the coveted letter that gives Hamilton command of a battalion in the fight with the Brits passes from hand to hand like an electrified baton.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Salieri to Hamilton’s Mozart … Giles Terera (Aaron Burr) with the West End cast of Hamilton. Photograph: Matthew Murphy
The performances also match the variety and energy of the music. Jamael Westman, not long out of drama school, invests Hamilton with immense authority, reminding us that words were always his most effective weapon and suggests a mixture of opportunist and visionary.
Giles Terera plays Burr with an envious gleam as if he were Salieri to Hamilton’s Mozart and always slightly in awe of his rival’s whirlwind success. Obioma Ugoala’s Washington, Hamilton’s surrogate father, has great gravitas, Rachelle Ann Go lends Hamilton’s wife the poignancy of the neglected and Rachel John is impressive as his adoring sister-in-law. But the funniest performances, aside from Jibson’s English king, come from Jason Pennycooke who doubles as a patriotic Lafayette and a spring-heeled Jefferson in a maroon maxi who jives and jumps with glee as Hamilton’s fortunes fade.
Timeline How Hamilton the Musical became a smash hit Show Hide January 2015 Hamilton, a new musical written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, has its first performances off-Broadway at the Public theater in New York. Its subject is the US founding father who was the first secretary of the Treasury. February 2015
As the show opens officially, it wins praise from critics particularly for its innovative blend of musical styles, from rap to operetta. In her four-star review, the Guardian’s Alexis Soloski calls the show ‘brash, nimble, historically engaged and startlingly contemporary’ August 2015
After selling out its run at the Public, the show opens on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers theatre and there is huge demand for tickets February 2016
The original Broadway cast recording wins a Grammy award for best musical theatre album March 2016
Miranda visits the White House to perform songs from the musical and a video of him freestyling in the Rose Garden with President Barack Obama goes viral. First Lady Michelle Obama calls the show “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life” April 2016
Hamilton wins the Pulitzer prize in drama June 2016
The musical breaks records, winning 11 Tony awards – at a ceremony that takes place after news breaks of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. Miranda performs a sonnet in praise of his wife and son, ending with the words: “Now fill the world with music, love and pride”. July 2016
Miranda stops performing in the show, to pursue other opportunities including starring in a sequel to Mary Poppins. A spoof version of the musical, Spamilton, opens in New York October 2016 A production of Hamilton opens in Chicago and runs concurrently to the Broadway version November 2016
Vice-president-elect Mike Pence sees the show in New York. From the stage, actor Brandon Victor Dixon addresses him directly, saying: “We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us” On Twitter, Donald Trump condemns their “terrible behaviour” and says he hears the show is “highly overrated”
January 2017
The first cast members are revealed for a West End production of Hamilton December 2017
The show opens at the newly renovated Victoria Palace theatre in London
In the end, however, the power of Hamilton lies in its ability to make the past seem vividly present. It suggests its subject was an Icarus who flew too close to the sun.
But it also shows that he was an outsider who believed in strong central government and an enlightened capitalism. Above all, Miranda has created an invigorating and original musical that, at a time of national crisis, celebrates America’s overwhelming debt to the immigrant.
January 2015
Hamilton, a new musical written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, has its first performances off-Broadway at the Public theater in New York. Its subject is the US founding father who was the first secretary of the Treasury.
February 2015
As the show opens officially, it wins praise from critics particularly for its innovative blend of musical styles, from rap to operetta. In her four-star review, the Guardian’s Alexis Soloski calls the show ‘brash, nimble, historically engaged and startlingly contemporary’
August 2015
After selling out its run at the Public, the show opens on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers theatre and there is huge demand for tickets
February 2016
The original Broadway cast recording wins a Grammy award for best musical theatre album
March 2016
Miranda visits the White House to perform songs from the musical and a video of him freestyling in the Rose Garden with President Barack Obama goes viral. First Lady Michelle Obama calls the show “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life”
April 2016
Hamilton wins the Pulitzer prize in drama
June 2016
The musical breaks records, winning 11 Tony awards – at a ceremony that takes place after news breaks of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. Miranda performs a sonnet in praise of his wife and son, ending with the words: “Now fill the world with music, love and pride”.
July 2016
Miranda stops performing in the show, to pursue other opportunities including starring in a sequel to Mary Poppins. A spoof version of the musical, Spamilton, opens in New York
October 2016
A production of Hamilton opens in Chicago and runs concurrently to the Broadway version
November 2016
Vice-president-elect Mike Pence sees the show in New York. From the stage, actor Brandon Victor Dixon addresses him directly, saying: “We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us” On Twitter, Donald Trump condemns their “terrible behaviour” and says he hears the show is “highly overrated”
January 2017
The first cast members are revealed for a West End production of Hamilton
December 2017
The show opens at the newly renovated Victoria Palace theatre in London
“Hamilton” is going to be just fine here in London. In the Broadway smash’s first outing beyond American soil, there’s a lot riding on the West End transfer of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit. Success here should pave the way for runs around the world, but, given that both style and subject matter are so all-American — a nation’s origin story, told in its own inimitable musical voice — that never felt like a sure thing.
But the moment you step into the newly refurbished Victoria Palace Theatre to find teenagers softly singing the show’s score to themselves pre-show, it feels like a done deal. “Hamilton” is all but sold out until July, with another batch of tickets released ahead of opening night.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tumbling hip-hop score, with its elastic, somersaulting lyrics and a surfeit of showstoppers, hardly needs more superlatives heaped upon it. Reviewing it feels like sizing up the Mona Lisa or Beethoven’s Fifth and, in truth, “Hamilton” lands on the London stage looking every inch the classic. It had already impacted on musical theater this side of the Atlantic, or at least upped its ambitions and updated its sensibilities, long before an all-new British cast got its mouths around Miranda’s material.
If they make it seem a bit more Shakespearean, a little less street, small bother. Alexander Hamilton’s story, from revolutionary rising up against British colonial rule to stately treasury secretary fighting on home fronts, more than stands up to that. What it loses, perhaps inevitably, is the strength of connection to the national narrative. With that, the propulsion of the second half drops off somewhat, but so does the radicalism of the color-conscious casting. The founding fathers don’t stare back at us from our banknotes, nor do we study them in school. The idea lands, but not the accompanying feeling. It’s entirely possible that people now see Miranda and company when they picture the men in question, and maybe that’s a job well done.
What changes there are stem from the casting. In Jamael Westman, London has itself a fine Hamilton to fill Miranda’s sizeable shoes. At 6’4”, he looms above the rest of the cast and cuts quite the Mr. Darcy-style dash. That, in itself, tilts the whole show on its axis. Westman’s Hamilton wears his smarts like a designer suit. He’s not so much “young, scrappy and hungry” as smooth, smug and entitled. His eyebrows are almost permanently cocked, as if checking himself out in the mirror, and his bamboozling outburst against Samuel Seabury in “Farmer Refuted” feels more like vain showboating than revolutionary fervor.
That, though, fits just fine with Hamilton’s hot-headed youth. At 25, only out of RADA last year, Westman seems so much fresher than Miranda ever did and, though he ages up well as the second half wears on, sage and somber with glasses perched on the end of his nose, it takes a while to warm to him, rather than merely marvel at him. The whole revolutionary set, in fact, seem like carefree, faintly obnoxious, college bros: Tarinn Calender’s dopey Hercules Mulligan, Cleve September’s swish, ponytailed John Laurens and the impishly unpredictable Lafayette of Jason Pennycooke — a Prince to Daveed Diggs’ Andre 3000. The treat is watching them grow up, into themselves and into soldiers and statesmen.
As Aaron Burr, Giles Terera becomes the grad student to their freshmen. A lithe, even slimey, solitary figure always desperately trying and failing to fit in, Terera grounds Burr’s growing resentment beautifully. He’s the Salieri to Hamilton’s Mozart, and if he’s repeatedly overlooked for his junior, it has more to do with Hamilton’s charm and charisma than any singular merit or wit. With a slight lisp and a slighter frame, Terrera’s Burr has a gnat-like quality, easily swatted away despite his brilliance. Little wonder life grinds him down to bitterness, even something like madness and, as Burr’s star falls and his life stalls, Terera’s eyes cross in blinkered enmity. You feel for him hugely, particularly given the way he drops his guard in the slow surge of “Wait for It” and the delicacy that is “Dear Theodosia.”
If there’s a disappointment here, it’s the Schuyler sisters. Given that the trio gets all the best tunes — “Helpless,” “Satisfied” and “Burn,” — it’s a shame that Thomas Kail’s production dresses them like candy and treats them as trophies. At their best in their lightly ironic opening theme “The Schuyler Sisters,’ triangulated like TLC, they have a playful repartee, but they pale as the show unfolds. Rachelle Ann Go’s Eliza is sweetly nondescript, throwing away her songs by treating them as showpieces, while Rachel John falls far short of the sharp wit and supercharged integrity Angelica requires. Neither musters much chemistry with Westman, who looks lankily awkward at either’s side. It’s left to Christine Allado as Hamilton’s mistress Maria Reynolds to instill some much-needed luster. Without talismanic women, “Hamilton” leans into lopsidedness.
One Brit, though, banishes any thought of Broadway: Michael Jibson, whose baby-faced King George is impetuousness personified. Apparently pinned in place by the weight of his crown, his body stays stock still as his face flickers through a conveyor belt of emotions. His eyes bulge mischievously, his lips pucker. He’s gooey one second, wrathful the next, then all kinds of petulant. At one point, he seems to tire of his own solo, rolling his eyes before over-extending a note because, being king, well, he can. It’s the most magisterial cameo.
If it stands out, that’s partly because Kail’s staging is somewhat underwhelming. Heresy perhaps, but it doesn’t stand up to London standards. For all it photographs beautifully, in the flesh, in the room where it happens, it seems strangely dated. David Korins’ design, with its fake brick walls and its stained ye-olde timber frame, combines with Howell Binkley’s soft-focus color-cushioned lighting to give the whole an air of flimsy theatricality — as waxen as anything in Madame Tussauds. For all the contemporary, contradictory swagger of Paul Tazewell’s stylings, it all looks a little too “Les Mis” to convince. British directors tend to take a more matter-of-fact approach, but the trappings of staginess detract. Too few of Kail’s images really land — a motif about pens and paper, words and letters excepted — and, though it has its memorable moments, Andy Blankenbuehler’s near-constant choreography can blur itself into blandness.
Again, though, small bother. It’s Miranda’s score that sings, his lyrics that land and Hamilton’s story that stirs. London’s going to love it.
