Hamilton at the Peace Center
“It’s Hamilton. 5 stars.”
Easy as it would be to publish that review of arguably the best musical to ever come from Broadway, saying so little would do the current national tour’s cast and crew a great disservice.
The play, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, seems like it shouldn’t work as it’s rife with the type of historical tidbits that puts AP high school students to sleep. However, if the pop culture landscape of the last 10 years has anything to say about it, it does work and works very well.
Taking the audience from Hamilton’s arrival in the American colonies, through the Revolutionary War, deep into both the Washington and Adams presidential administrations, and capping it all with our hero’s personal travails and death, theatergoers young and old stay transfixed even on the minutiae of cabinet meetings and debates at the Continental Congress. Much of this narrative success is due to Miranda’s deft use of modern hip-hop beats, rap lyricism, and good old-fashioned storytelling panache.
But enough about the show everyone knows by heart. How was this production?
I have to start with Tyler Fauntleroy, whose portrayal of Hamilton is a fan’s dream come true and also provides a lot of subtlety that doesn’t come through as clearly in the original cast filmed version or repeated listens of the Broadway Cast Album. Fauntleroy enters with great presence and bravado but never lets us forget that his story is that of an underdog. His voice and characterizations are top-notch and he could have carried the show were it a one-man performance.
Of those by his side throughout the production, Lauren Mariasoosay as Eliza Hamilton (née Schuyler) shows great range both in her singing and acting, Nathan Haydel as John Laurens and Hamilton’s son Philip (aged 9-19) has a velvety tone that sticks out among the cast, and A.D. Weaver’s George Washington commands the stage whenever present, as one might have imagined our first president doing.
A special shout-out also has to go to ensemble member Shelby Acosta, who stepped into the difficult role of Angelica Schuyler on opening night and nailed it from the first note.
Some of the other major cast members, such as Jimmie “JJ” Jeter as Aaron Burr and Jared Howelton as Lafayette in the first act and Thomas Jefferson in the second, comport themselves well, but a lack of dynamic vocals and presence from these two might have one longing for the cast of the original Broadway production. Justin Matthew Sargent’s King George III, however, is thoroughly crowd-pleasing, as the role is meant to be.
A real unsung (no pun intended) hero of the show is music director Emmanuel Schvartzman, who coordinates a small orchestra and some sampled bits of music to fill the house while never overwhelming the delicate lyrics. Kudos should also go to sound designer Nevin Steinberg for the same, as many musicals that come to the Peace Center often have words get lost in louder songs and even hurt ears from the excessive volume.
Although lifted directly from the original production, Thomas Kail’s direction and Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography make great use of a sparsely decorated stage. Even after multiple viewings of this staging, one could come away having caught something they haven’t seen before, and it’s expected that’s by design.
At house lights up, the smiles of the attendees were countless, despite the show’s inherently dour ending. Those smiles were on the faces of folks who may have never seen a musical before and those whose tastes usually harken toward the classics, as well as the diehard fans. For what’s essentially a three-hour history lesson, Hamilton continues to elicit such reactions because it simply is as good as its reputation suggests.
Hamilton runs through Feb. 16 at the Peace Center. For details and tickets, visit peacecenter.org.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
