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Saw Hamilton last night!!!
Mar. 18th, 2021 10:56 amI've seen the Broadway version on Disney+ before but seeing it live was a completely different experience. The energy on stage was unbelievable. The Australian cast were all fantastic - LMM's are huge shoes to fill, but Jason Arrow is at a point in his career where 'young, scrappy and hungry' rings very true, and I thought he did a great job channeling that into the performance. Matu Ngaropo (Washington) oozed charisma every second he was on stage, and man, Lyndon Watts (Burr) can DANCE. Actually all the dancing was phenomenal. There were a few moments where I was too captivated by the background dancers to keep my eyes on the main action. And Brent Hill as King George was fucking hilarious - actually (maybe heretically) I found him funnier than Jonathan Groff, because Australian humour tends to be more understated than American humour, and the OG spittle-flecked King George shtick was always just ever so slightly too much for me.
Australian musical theatre has been having a bit of a reckoning lately over cultural diversity, so it's a really good time for a musical like Hamilton to be showing here. I was especially glad they starred Indigenous performers among the cast, because god only knows they aren't exactly spoilt for roles and representation.
What I didn't enjoy was being out in a crowd for the first time in a year. It's not something I want to complain too much about, when we're one of the only places in the world that are currently safe and healthy enough to have our theatres open - I feel really lucky to have been able to enjoy last night. It's more that I was surprised by how much the crowding bothered me. I've always hated small, everyday-type crowds with a passion, but there's usually a kind of magic that happens when the group gets big enough and you're all united in excitement for the same show or play or whatever event. Not last night. I'm so damn out of practice at being around strangers, and I wanted to snarl at every person who bumped into me and straight-up sucker punch every wanker who broke the mask rules. I wonder how many people are going to have the same experience when the rest of the world opens up. Being jammed shoulder-to-shoulder in small spaces with total strangers isn't really what humans evolved for, and it hasn't taken much time away from the throng for my psyche to revert to its natural small-tribe state.
Anyway. Pandemic-induced navelgazing aside, last night was so amazing that I think I'm going to keep an eye out for cheap tickets in case I get the chance to go again. I will happily sit alone in a back-row single seat if that's what it takes to re-experience the show in person. In the meantime, I'm going to go rock out to the studio recording of Right Hand Man and work on getting my splits back because those dancers made me so jealous.
Australian musical theatre has been having a bit of a reckoning lately over cultural diversity, so it's a really good time for a musical like Hamilton to be showing here. I was especially glad they starred Indigenous performers among the cast, because god only knows they aren't exactly spoilt for roles and representation.
What I didn't enjoy was being out in a crowd for the first time in a year. It's not something I want to complain too much about, when we're one of the only places in the world that are currently safe and healthy enough to have our theatres open - I feel really lucky to have been able to enjoy last night. It's more that I was surprised by how much the crowding bothered me. I've always hated small, everyday-type crowds with a passion, but there's usually a kind of magic that happens when the group gets big enough and you're all united in excitement for the same show or play or whatever event. Not last night. I'm so damn out of practice at being around strangers, and I wanted to snarl at every person who bumped into me and straight-up sucker punch every wanker who broke the mask rules. I wonder how many people are going to have the same experience when the rest of the world opens up. Being jammed shoulder-to-shoulder in small spaces with total strangers isn't really what humans evolved for, and it hasn't taken much time away from the throng for my psyche to revert to its natural small-tribe state.
Anyway. Pandemic-induced navelgazing aside, last night was so amazing that I think I'm going to keep an eye out for cheap tickets in case I get the chance to go again. I will happily sit alone in a back-row single seat if that's what it takes to re-experience the show in person. In the meantime, I'm going to go rock out to the studio recording of Right Hand Man and work on getting my splits back because those dancers made me so jealous.
