I finally got to be in the room where it happened.
Hamilton’s National Tour Cast has made a stop in St. Louis at the Fabulous Fox Theatre for three weeks this month. As a birthday gift I was lucky enough to enjoy the musical I have been obsessing over the last few years on weekend two.
With my bags packed and a few weeks left in the semester, nothing was stopping me from being in that theatre for the matinee performance in my hometown.
The soundtrack, while beautifully written and composed, does not do the musical justice. Visually getting to experience these songs brought a new fascination for them and Alexander Hamilton’s story.
Lin Manuel Miranda, the brains and words behind this phenomenon, did so well on keeping your attention while also pulling at every emotion imaginable.
I always like describing the first act full of hope while the second act is an act full of heartache and mistakes. The first act I love on soundtrack, but it is the second act that left me helpless — see what I did there? — and wanting more because it pulled on all my emotions.
I could go on and on about all the songs that impacted me, how cool the entire production, the use of the turntables on stage is and how seamless each transition is between scenes. Instead, I am highlighting a few I cannot stop talking about with friends.
“Satisfied” was the perfect blend of beauty and heartache as Angelica sends Alexander Eliza’s way. The use of the stage turntables, embedded on the stage floor, rewinds the scene back to where Eliza and Alexander first meet, but in Angelica’s perspective.
A personal favorite from the soundtrack, seeing “Satisfied” play out on stage brought so much more to the song.
Another song that brought more from a stage than just listening to the music was “The Reynold’s Pamphlet.”
While I have been hanging on Angelica’s line, “I’m not here for you,” since I first heard the music a few years back, I never thought the portrayal of the song would be a bit humorous.
Hamilton is standing in the middle of the stage as everyone, including our comedic relief, King George, who wanted to see his fall going around throwing the Pamphlet in the air taunting Hamilton.
I am still finding little quips and foreshadows that make the musical so genius. The biggest, most profound, was the end of the story.
Not only the connection and foreshadow between, “The Ten Dual Commandments,” “Blow Us All Away,” and “The World Was Wide Enough,” but Aaron Burr himself.
What makes Burr so likable, even though he is posed as the villain in the story, is his qualities. Some of the best villains in a story are told in a way which they feel their actions are what is right.
At the time of the last duel, his built up jealousy and anger from Hamilton endorsing Jefferson got the best of him.
Burr, for the majority of his life, was willing to wait for it while Hamilton was shooting off at the mouth.
During the duel, the roles reversed and Hamilton shot his pistol at the sky and Burr was not willing to wait for it. He thought there was only room for one of them in this world.
Now, Burr was a real person and killing Hamilton did mess him up in reality. The end of his story is a heartbreaking one. “The World Was Wide Enough,” even briefly foreshadows his undoing.
All in all, Hamilton was a musical I believe everybody should experience once in their life, or at least listen to the soundtrack a few times.
An important musical that is more about a founding father without a father.
A word of advice before you go see the show, if you do, brush up on the lyrics and a bit of history.