Hamilton – 7.5

First, let me say I thought the production for the screen was sensational. This was so much better than seeing the play on stage – although I admit when we saw it on Broadway early in its run our seats were far away and we couldn’t distinguish many of the lyrics. On the TV screen, we not only got close-ups of the actors, we used closed-captioning, which solved any problem of unintelligibility. The other big problem, however,  remained: I felt I was being given a history lesson, not a Broadway show. Incidents were included not for the dramatic sense they made, but to check off chapters in Ron Chernow’s biography, which, unfortunately, I had just read before seeing the play. To take one example: we hear of Hamilton’s son Phillip when he is born, then next when he defends his father, has a duel and is killed. We haven’t been made to care about him as we would have in a play about a fictional family, say. Nor is the relationship with the Schuyler sisters developed fully or properly. It is instead always seemingly in conflict with the political drama. The music is what it is: a variety of styles, some of which are more appealing to me than others. But a fair amount is more pounding than melodic; it builds the momentum of the play but is not something you want to hum, or hear again. Finally, and sadly, I confess to being underwhelmed by Lin-Manuel’s acting and singing. His genius is in writing the play, its songs and lyrics, not to mention the concept of having Blacks portraying the Founding Fathers. But he never impressed me as “Hamilton.” Maybe my idea of Hamilton is totally false, coming as it does mainly from the $20 bill, but Miranda didn’t convince me that he could devise, or would even be interested in devising, the nation’s financial system. He was like a frisky puppy, jumping from one thing to the next, lacking the gravitas I wanted at the center of the play. Granted, he took liberties with all the other characterizations – see, e.g., Thomas Jefferson – and there’s no reason Hamilton had to be historically correct, or even close. But I would have liked a central figure that I cared more about, a hero – even a tragic hero – who didn’t just move so effortlessly into the next thing, in this case his legacy. To close on a positive note, I award five stars to the performances of Eliza and Angelica, and Daveed Diggs was an absolute showstopper as Jefferson and, as a warm-up, Lafayette. Everyone’s favorite, mine too, was King George III, who not only got the best melody to sing, the best costume, and the best mug, but even with closed-captioning it was a relief to finally hear clearly enunciated words that you didn’t have to run after.