Let’s just say that streaming theatre, while worthwhile, is a shadow on the cave compared to the live variety. Bravo.Īs I passively absorbed a videotaping of a landmark musical, I longed for more, for something that we have all been missing for months now: the collective vibrancy of sharing space with our fellow humans. The opportunity to view these powerful moments inspires gratitude. Singing the concluding line of the musical, she turns towards the audience and lets out a pained yet strangely joyful scream, as if simultaneously dying and joining her beloved.Īs illustrated by these two subtle examples, the filmed production of Hamilton reverberates with poignant threads of redemption and a fleetingly heartfelt glimpse of the Kingdom. As if between worlds, they circle each other lovingly. On the final refrain, she notices her husband watching her from upstage. In the haunting finale, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” Eliza reveals how she spent her fifty years of widowed life striving to further her husband’s legacy. Likewise, listening to the soundtrack did not prepare me for the delicate final images of watching Alexander tenderly wait in the background for his resilient wife to join him in eternity. This discrete gesture of forgiveness radiates the spartan stage with palpable beams of reconciliation and redemption as the chorus soothingly sings, “Forgiveness, can you imagine?” Prompted by the lyric, “There is a grace too powerful to name,” Eliza delicately reaches across the divide of adultery and neglect to take her husband’s longing and repentant hand. Draped in black and bathed in luminous blue light, a bereft Eliza Hamilton (Phillipa Soo) stands beside her estranged husband (Miranda) following the death of their son. From the battle of Yorktown to the hero’s death by dual, Hamilton proves a visually striking show.īut among the dozens of beautiful moments on display throughout the production, two of the simpler images that take place late in the story hit me the hardest. Dance and design lifted Miranda’s voluminous score with dozens of kinetic and poignant stage pictures. In particular, Andy Blankenbuehler’s symbolic choreography and Howell Binkley’s evocative lighting design, both Tony winners, translated beautifully to video. Thankfully, Disney Plus’ original cast video-recording of a 2016 performance stands out as one of the finer attempts to capture live theatre. Sadly, the $400+ tickets for the touring productions priced this theatre professor out of the market. Although I had listened to the soundtrack, I had still never actually seen the show. Like nearly every theatre person in the world with a good internet connection, I eagerly consumed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epic musical theatre masterpiece, Hamilton, when it ceremoniously dropped on July 3 rd on Disney Plus. These emotions ping-pong between gratitude and longing.
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