'Hamilton' remains a stirring achievement, even after three viewings
Arts & Entertainment // Arts & Theater
Andrew Dansby April 29, 2018
Having visited the room where it happens three times, I'm intrigued by the differences in the three productions of "Hamilton: An American Musical" that I've seen over the past three years.
To dispel the idea that I've romanticized some unattainable experience viewed in the past, I will say that I left my first viewing of "Hamilton" — when the show was in previews at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York in July 2015 — thinking it was an impressive piece of work. But just that. Between that production and the second time I saw "Hamilton" — March 2016, also at the Rodgers — I heard the cast recording dozens if not hundreds of times, the result of having a child obsessed with the musical.
In a vacuum where only the words and notes resonated, the thematic and compositional complexity of this show were further revealed. So after seeing it a third time at the Hobby Center on Wednesday, the construction of this piece remains a marvel that impresses me wholly. My attention has been snared by the way creator Lin-Manuel Miranda composed a song or a melody or a lyrical phrase, established it early in the show and then threaded it through subsequent pieces of music. The stating and restating of themes isn't novel, but it's a complex juggling act, and has the ability to transport one's mind over a three-hour span. This cyclical construct creates an inescapable feeling during the production: A reminder that the past matters now, just as now will matter in the future; sometimes our culture takes a step back, but often we manage two steps forward; few developments are truly new, but the present is crucial.
These are the attributes of "Hamilton" that, to my eyes and ears, make the touring production a vital organism. Much art is best appreciated with repetition: Albums are meant to be played repeatedly, paintings are meant to be stared at across time. But live productions — be it a musical or a concert — don't always have that luxury. This show, though, benefits from repetition.
On third viewing, my attention was more grabbed by the visceral quality of the choreography, and how wondrously it complemented the music and narrative. Broadway choreography is easily mocked — JAZZ HANDS! — but it's an art with a long storied history that deserves better than reduction based on some hammy productions from the '80s. I never felt more moved by the present and future of musical theater choreography than watching this show, where dancers conveyed the slaughter of war without requiring great numbers. They also stopped time and froze bullets to allow the musical's more meditative matter a moment to be expressed.
These details can be difficult to appreciate when trying to follow a narrative in which the words come fast and frequent.
'Hamilton'
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, through May 20
Where: Hobby Center, 800 Bagby
Details: For daily ticket lotteries, visit hamiltonmusical.com/lottery.
While the core of the show remains consistent, the way it is dressed has evolved and — based on the show's popularity — will continue to evolve for some time now.
And here I found some negative impressions to accompany the positive.
The touring crew of "Hamilton" clearly conveyed the show's resonance: Its characters' early swagger, their tragic ambition, their more tragic comeuppances and their posthumous recognition.
But I also recognized a value in the original casting. Much has been made about the cultural diversity of the cast, but more specifically, I think the outsider casting added value to the original because it sought people with a different skill set. Musical theater artists have spent their lives singing and dancing in harmony. But the hip-hop component of "Hamilton" — which is crucial to the production's vigor — is a casting wild card, and at times it has felt compromised.
"Hamilton" is almost completely sung through, if you count conversations that are rapped and semi-rapped instead of spoken. The problem: Delivering rapped lines still requires a specific musicality that marries dexterity of wordplay with an enunciation that must also fly instead of trudge.
This muddiness with the words nagged at me Wednesday. At the end of Act I during "Non-Stop" I realized my hangup. The lines were traded almost as if they were dialogue. They were leaden when they needed to be feathery.
Miranda himself is no top-shelf singer; he'd admit as much. But his Hamilton rattled off the rapped lines with both precision and musicality, so that the thistle of words revealed flowers in its internal rhyme schemes. To hit the lines without that musicality is to recite them, essentially. So exchanges between characters become just that, exchanges of words instead of exchanges of words and music.
Which means something gets lost, and at times some of the word fall flat when they should be at their most spry. Because the backing music rushes through the production with such swiftness, the spoke-sung words robbed of their intricate rhyme scheme become swampy. Friends who had never seen the show before told me they had trouble keeping up with the more rap-centric songs.
I prefer the production's wrenching ballads that convey its themes of ambition, love and loss, but those moments have resonance built contingently upon the raps, which provide characters' internal pep talks — the weird murky water where competence and confidence swirl together in ways that can produce greatness or tragedy.
Possibly, this observation falls into the category of quibble. The effect of the show remains in tact, as evidenced by the full Hobby Center and the rapturous applause after each song.
I, too, was swept up again by the story: the way Miranda compressed an enormous amount of history into a dramatic framework that also had plenty of room for romance, scandal, tragedy and reflection. But I couldn't help but notice how complicated this piece of music is to reproduce brilliantly. Even though doing it quite well remains a stirring achievement.
andrew.dansby@chron.com
Andrew Dansby
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Andrew Dansby covers music and other entertainment, both local and national, for the Houston Chronicle, 29-95.com and chron.com. He previously assisted the editor for George R.R. Martin, author of "Game of Thrones" and later worked on three "major" motion pictures you've never seen. That short spell in the film business nudged him into writing, first as a freelancer and later with Rolling Stone. He came to the Chronicle in 2004 as an entertainment editor and has since moved to writing full time.
Andrew dislikes monkeys, dolphins and the outdoors. He has no pets.
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