Peter Viney's Blog

Hamilton: An American Musical

Music & Lyrics by Lin- Manuel Miranda
Inspired by the book “Hamilton” by Ron Chernow

Directed by Thomas Kail
Design by David Korins
Choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler

Victoria Palace Theatre, London

Thursday 16^thAugust 2018  19.30

CAST:
Ash Hutchins ( alternative Alexander Hamilton)
Waylon Jacobs (King George)
Christine Allado (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds)
Rachelle Ann Go (Eliza Hamilton)
Tarinn Callender (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison)
Miriam Teak-Lee (Angelica Schuyler)
Jason Pennycooke (Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson)
Cleve September (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton)
Giles Terera (Aaron Burr)
Obioma Ugoala (George Washington)

Video screen: the lobby. Actual cast

It’s taken nine months to get to see it in London, and the London opening was nearly three years after the American opening. You enter past the efficient and polite security – you’re asked to be there an hour early at 6.30, which doesn’t leave a lot of time to eat before the show. I applaud their efforts to kill the secondary market, but I would have liked to have had a relaxed evening meal first. The Victoria Palace is well outside “Theatreland” in the West End too, so new territory for us. The theatre was totally refurbished and the stage area designed specifically for Hamilton, and the spacious public areas, excellent ladies loos and ambience far exceed any other old London theatre building.

You’ve read all those five star reviews, some saying the London production is even better than the US original. This far along the show’s lengthy progress (and it will go on and on) you wonder about freshness, and cast changes. The on-line pictures differ from who we saw in roles. Fortunately I took a photo of the video screen in the lobby which records the cast we actually saw … three different than the programme too. Miriam Teak-Lee, Waylon Jacobs and Ash Hunter. So it is changing as time passes.

THE HISTORY BEHIND IT …

The Hamilton industry …

Sorry, this probably has more on the history throughout than on the first class singing, dancing, musical score,lyrics, acting, lighting, sound, set, costumes and live music. All of those areas are A1, 5 star, perfect. It’s a huge ensemble / swing cast and they’re working a very high percentage of the time, adding choral singing as well as dancing.

I’m interested in the British take on a story that is only vaguely known here. I studied American History and even so my recollections are not that detailed. Americans would have trawled through this several times in their education. It’s History 101; it’s the story they see every day on banknotes with Hamilton the only non-President on one, the $10 bill. Hamilton founded the Federalist Party, the US Coast Guard, The Bank of New York and The New York Post. He was the economically sound Secretary of The Treasury, and he fought a duel with the Vice-President Aaron Burr in 1804, which was … sorry, this is a plot spoiler … the death of him. Hamilton had previously fought ten duels, including two against fellow Founding Fathers … one against future president James Monroe in 1797, and one against George Clinton, who was vice-president, in 1804. Hamilton was illegitimate, born in Nevis in the West Indies. His mother, a French Hugenot, left her husband and child to live with his father, a Scot, James Hamilton. Alexander was their second child. They lived together openly on the Danish island St. Croix, until James left them when he was ten and Rachel died when he was thirteen. Alexander moved to New York, joined the militia, and became an aide to Washington. He was elected to congress, later commanded the US army, and campaigned against the slave trade. Incidentally, his mother owned five slaves. But that’s definitely not our story here …

THE MUSICAL

I agree, OK, it’s the greatest innovation in the American Musical since West Side Story. The hip-hop was phenomenal. I was greatly surprised by how much of the unfamiliar soundtrack veered to conventional musical / Disney movie though. The pit orchestra consist of the normal rock line up, plus a four piece string section. The guitarist also uses banjo for an 18th century feel. There is percussion as well as drums. Ian King’s bass guitar / double bass work stood out for me.

Ash Hunter as Hamilton (backstage photo)

They have alternative leads as Alexander Hamilton. The reviews in London were for Jamaal Westman. We saw Ash Hunter. Why they need two Hamiltons, but one Burr and one Lafayette / Jefferson escapes me. I’d say all three are as physically demanding. Perhaps Hamilton is more emotionally demanding, and Ash Hunter proved exceptional in the more emotional second part. It was a totally compelling performance, and he rose in stature as more pain came into Hamilton’s private life. His face is magnificently expressive. Both he and Rachelle Ann Go as his wife were genuinely moving after the death of his son Philip in a duel, which his own later duel was to mirror. Hunter also gets across the exhaustion of the hardest working Secretary of the Treasury, as well as the seducer’s glint in the eye. Hamilton was also distinguished in founding an American tradition, the senior politician getting caught with his pants down, and that’s one that runs and runs.

Giles Terera as Aaron Burr

Giles Terera as Aaron Burr bookends the play as semi-narrator, and you’d have to class him as a joint lead. I doubt that Burr and Hamilton were THAT close over so many years in reality, but it works here.

Jason Pennycooke as Thomas Jefferson (in London)

Then it’s an inspired choice to have the same actor, Jason Pennycooke, playing the French Marquis de Lafayette in the first half, then switching to a (very camp) Thomas Jefferson in the second half. As Ambassador to Paris during the Revolutionary War Jefferson is a Francophile, but also subject to accusations of “You missed it.” The three Schuyler sisters carry a lot of the more conventional song, and Angelica (Miriam Teak-Lee  tonight) as the one he fancied, and Eliza (Rachelle Ann Go) as the one he married are both wonderful singers.  Waylon Jacob’s King George III (replacing Michael Jibson) was so good and so extremely funny that he got applause every time he reappeared.

There were a lot of Americans in the audience, a lot of people who knew every song. People want to see it again. It got an instant 100% standing ovation, a given in the USA, but still a great accolade in London. Of course it’s five star, but I have reservations. Maybe a 4.99 star then. For a British audience the story of the Revolutionary War and founding of the USA is not that transparent. The creation of Washington DC on the border twixt slaveholding South and industrial North does not get instant recognition in the UK. The intrinsic political story is hardly a classic theme for drama, let alone musical drama. While we roar with laughter at Thomas Jefferson played as Little Richard meets Liberace meets The Cat from Red Dwarf, we can’t feel the iconoclasm of that portrayal in the way Americans will. It’s fascinating to see Washington as a big powerful guy (which makes sense) rather than the portraits which look like everyone’s ailing and judgemental great grandma. It’s funny to see Madison with a permanent cold.

We love a daft George III, a brilliant cameo. Incidentally, British audiences happily accept George III as a prat and bad guy. We know that our ancestors, transported to the colonies for poaching rabbits, so then serving seven years as indentured servants would have been on the American side. The British army preferred Hessian mercenaries as they realised that forcibly pressed English, Scots, Welsh and Irish soldiers in the British army would likely have joined the Americans at the first opportunity. We know the British were the bad guys in this one. However, I would take issue with any concept (as here) that American victory was a worrying possibility, and not a definite given. It took six weeks to get a communication to London with a reply. You can’t govern at that distance.  On key factors like shipbuilding, cloth manufacture, metal processing, the American colonies were already rivalling Britain. American victory was a certainty.

One of the great appeals for America is black and other ethnicities claiming this common “AmHist 101” area as shared history and that spirit transfers across the Atlantic. That theme runs alongside turning that same history on its side, or perhaps viewing it through new glasses from a new angle. It is a very funny play too. At one point they say “We’re immigrants – we get the job done !’ To resounding cheers and applause from the London audience. The slavery theme gets touched upon – a quick pointing that the three Virginians; Jefferson, Washington and Madison are all slaveholders. I’d’ve expected more. Then John Adams is semi-dismissed as “John who?” Yet Adams, like Hamilton, stood out among the main Founding Fathers as non-slaveholders. While Hamilton was an abolitionist his recorded arguments are economic rather than moral, and his father-in-law owned slaves. I did Slavery as my third year option in American History, then while doing my American Literature MA had to get a history credit, which I got for researching slave ship records. So I was looking for more on this. My first degree was at Hull which had Wilberforce scholarships (Wilberforce was the great British abolitionist from Hull) for African-Americans. We also had many Africans. I recall a long argument from the Africans that many of the African-Americans looked more than half-white to them, which brings us back to that shared history. Inevitably there is a great deal of slaveholder DNA in the African-American population.  I thought this when our black Jefferson here was happily admitting slaveholding … it’s not that incongruous for an African-American to have that in their own personal history. The playing of Jefferson as a figure of fun was the biggest surprise. I still recall that John F. Kennedy quote when entertaining a group of Nobel Prize winners in the White House. He said it was the greatest gathering of intellect the dining room had known since … Jefferson dined there alone. Still, there should be no holy cows in politician history!

But of course the vast majority of this fine cast are British actors. I usually notice accent drift when this happens, but not here. Not that it would matter. While some observers comment on an American accent as early as 1720, it’s probable that the originals of these American landed gentry of the late 18th century sounded “less American” if “American” at all. And it’s a general Black American English accent as default anyway. I’d venture it’s a tad stronger in the US productions.

A thought. They do not have British cast CDs, which is the one I’d want as a souvenir. They have a Hamilton shop, T shirts, buttons, coasters, A. Ham caps. The CDs are Broadway cast, at a whopping £25. That made me look at amazon on my phone. £10.99. Daft. If it had been a very expensive £15, I might have bought one. £25 is too high to sell many. I saw the CD the next day at The National Theatre for £15.99.

*****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID … in December 2017, nine months ago

5 star
Michael Billington, The Guardian *****
Paul Taylor, The Independent, *****
Matthew Murphy, The Times *****
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, *****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage *****
Anne Treneman, The Times *****
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out *****
Tim Bano, The Stage *****

3 star
Quentin Letts, Daily Mail ***