Review: ‘Hamilton’ is nonstop
Review: ★★★★½
“Hamilton,” the musical narrative of one of America’s founding fathers, is currently on its third touring run at the Hobby Center in Houston.
Over the past ten years, “Hamilton” has managed to become one of the most highly revered musicals on Broadway, with a seemingly never-ending tour schedule that has only grown its mass appeal. There has always been at least one tour running in North America from 2017 until now, with many also running simultaneously around the world.
Tickets have been distributed at Rice through both the Rice Program Council giveaway and the Rice Ticket Resale GroupMe (for everyone looking for trades, I wish you luck).
The show will run in Houston until March 23, so even if you are currently down for the count in securing a ticket, you still have time to try upon returning from spring break.
As for the performance itself, this cast and crew definitely showed why, 10 years after its debut, this show still attracts a crowd. The hip-hop musical performances fill the entire 2.5 hour runtime, and are catchy and energetic.
Every move is perfectly calculated and timed, from the hands-on-hips of the Schuyler sisters singing their way through downtown New York to the invisible bullet that an ensemble member moves across the stage as battles and duels are waged.
The set of the show is minimalistic but robust, including a second story balcony for pivotal moments in the show and a rotating stage that adds further drama to both the acting and the choreography.
Furniture pieces are seamlessly moved on and off in between numbers, integrated smoothly into the performance rather than feeling like distractions.
Necessary technical elements are blended with stage action, such as a desk hovering through the air as an ensemble member dances it off-stage in slow motion.
However, the actors’ microphones felt like they required a bit more fine-tuning. In the beginning, the microphones were often cued in seconds after the respective actor had begun saying their line.
In a show such as “Hamilton,” where every aspect is blocked down to the minute, this meant consistently missing the first few words of what the characters were saying, which quickly got old. Luckily, this technical issue was fixed during the first act.
The volume of the microphones, however, was a struggle throughout the performance, with the music sometimes feeling like it was competing against the actors’ voices.
With the fast-paced rap nature of many songs, the details of what actors were saying was lost in the loud orchestra and often-too-faint mic. For die-hard fans who know all of the words, this might not be an issue, but any new fan will find themselves needing to listen extra carefully to what is being said.
The show portrays the founding fathers in a more realistic, less than perfect image as they navigate the challenges that come with forming a democracy. Alexander Hamilton, the show’s namesake, faces the additional burden of being a founding father with an immigrant background.
He often faces discrimination in the form of xenophobia from the other founders, especially with his strong personality and plethora of ideas he attempts to push through the early years of the nation.
Whether you went through a huge Hamilton phase in 2015 or you are just discovering the musical today, the show and its message will resonate.
This company does a fantastic job of portraying all the various nuances imagined by Lin Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator, and I highly recommend watching it while it is still in Houston.
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