Hamilton

JSDCA

Watched with the family last night.  Told our daughters (11 and 15) that they had to give it “20”; they never left.  (Helps that they know the music.) Amazing. I had literal tears streaming down my face.  The birth of our American experiment was not perfect and many hoped we would improve it. My faith and hope in the American experiment was a bit renewed last night.  

We were lucky to see Hamilton when it came to San Diego, but you can’t improve on Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Digs, and Rene Goldsberry, and seeing it at home I was able to see so much more. Both experiences were fantastic. Will be rewatching a number of times. 

MrX

I'm really excited to watch, never got to see it in person, although did listen to the soundtrack a bunch when it came out.

gguenot

Just watched it for my first time. Pretty good— I’m not a huge fan of musicals/theater, but I’m sure it was awesome live 

Dee

Whew, this was great. Leslie Odom Jr and Daveed Diggs especially were amazing; LMM was really the weakest singer on stage, but he had enough moxie to carry him through. 

I’m always in awe of people who can rap - I would be tripping over my words by the second line. 

I guess the guy who wrote the book that inspired LMM to write this must be doing okay. 

Marci

Dee said:

Whew, this was great. Leslie Odom Jr and Daveed Diggs especially were amazing; LMM was really the weakest singer on stage, but he had enough moxie to carry him through. 

I’m always in awe of people who can rap - I would be tripping over my words by the second line. 

I guess the guy who wrote the book that inspired LMM to write this must be doing okay. 

They figured out that if Hamilton was sung at the average rate most musicals are, it would run between 4 and 6 hours, but it delivers the words at an average of 144 per minute and up to 200 words per minute in places! I thought this video had some great stuff analyzing the style in which the different characters rap and how it relates to their characters. Someone else on YouTube did a whole series of videos breaking down all kinds of intricacies of a bunch of the songs. I'll have to see if I can find that. It's really an impressive feat.

Daveed Diggs' performance and the roles of Lafayette/Jefferson are definitely my favorite!

I got to see the national touring cast do the show about a year and a half ago, and I absolutely loved it, but I am so happy to get to see the original production like this, especially with the ability to cut between close-ups and wide shots.

EDIT: Found it! If you look up Howard Ho's channel on YouTube, he has a series of "How Hamilton Works" videos that are really interesting. https://www.youtube.com/c/HowardHoMusic/playlists

A_Ron_Hubbard

Loved it. Huge shot of optimism and positivity that was sorely needed. I sobbed through a lot of it myself. There is a point where Jackson as Washington is singing Washington's farewell address, which concludes with "I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government..."

Washington of course retired to his plantation where he owned 100s of slaves. The country was born as a fucked up mishmash of contradictory ideals and aspirations. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That sentence in our declaration of independence guaranteed we'd have a Civil War, a constant struggle for civil rights, and even the strife we're living through today. America is a story of small but ever growing segments of our population achieving something like this ideal before someone stands up and says, "what about me, am I equal and do I have these Rights?" and us having to fight each other tooth and nail to affirm this yet again. And when that arc isn't running, the other is bastards trying to undermine and undo our hard fought progress.

But I genuinely love the evolving process of liberty, and watching it play out in one man's life was really powerful. I'd heard the music before, and even seen a shitty bootleg of it, but they did an amazing job of capturing the live show. The potential promise of all citizens of a country, and eventually, the world, having the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the benign influence of good laws under a free government remains worth fighting and sacrificing for.