#i've also cried at boote in der nacht in elisabeth

[omgkatsudonplease]

#helpless (hamilton, a writeup)

okay so tl;dr? i cried. i frickin sat there with two teardrops rolling down my face and chin and neck and i couldn’t frickin wipe it away because i was so invested (and also i didn’t want to ruin my makeup) and it was just. it was so good guys. so good.

gushing about the staging under the cut

listen. we all know what a piece of musical genius this show is. none of that prepared me for how beautiful the staging was. oh my god. 

so the set has two storeys, with the top part like a wooden gallery. there are stairs leading down. the stage itself is open, and there’s a circular portion that rotates. it’s friggin beautiful. they really occupy the space. 

everyone is deeply involved in the show. seriously, the real mvps are the dancers of the ensemble? they’re in the background vocals, obviously, but they’re also, like, in every single song. we really lose some of that just listening to the soundtrack, because it’s one thing to hear a lot of ensemble vocals and it’s another to see them on stage, collaborating with the leading cast. they are everything – they are congresspeople and students and doctors and british and american soldiers. one of them plays a medic twice. they are a hurricane, they are the masses, they are the eyes of history watching and witnessing the leads. this is especially relevant in songs where the ensemble mostly appears up in the gallery, looking down at the events unfolding below. 

alexander was like, somehow even more extra in person? from where i was sitting, i actually was like really close to the stage, so i could see every detail of his earnest expressions. he’s so open and frank and passionate about everything.

as a contrast, i think the way burr was staged really drives out the tragedy of his arc. this is a story about hamilton, but burr is also very deeply entwined in that story as a sort of rival figure. but really, for burr this staging gives us the feeling that he’s kinda introverted and anxious – especially when he sings about the room where it happens. that switch from an impassive third-person “this is the room where it happens” to the more personal “i want to be in the room where it happens” really hammered in the sense that he cares. very deep down. about being excluded from the narrative. 

the doubling of hercules/madison and lafayette/jefferson wasn’t apparent to me when i first listened to the soundtrack, because i don’t tend to keep track of artist names when i’m listening, but seeing it on stage was really interesting? because in this narrative, lafayette returns to france…. and then jefferson comes in from france. which is kind of a stroke of genius. and then the idea of having hamilton’s closest friends in act 1 as his enemies in act 2 is also very interesting in a meta way. same for peggy becoming maria reynolds and mr schuyler becoming mr reynolds. and of, course, laurens doubling as phillip really hurt because in a very meta way, hamilton loses a guy he loves twice, not to mention laurens shoots a man in the first duel that comes back to shoot him in the penultimate one.

for reference, i cried when phillip died.

there’s also a lot of turns of phrase that i hadn’t noticed in the soundtrack that got really brought out in the staging. for example, the repeated phrase of “helpless” in “say no to this”, hearkening back to the song in the first act. then the repeats of the number ten are elaborated by the presence of the ensemble cast forming a line between the duel contestants. 

it is interesting that the ensemble is usually in white, with various bodices that are either corset or waistcoat-styled. most of the feminine-presenting ensemble members wore both waistcoat and corset bodices, and sometimes attached full skirts to the corset ones, or – in one instance, wearing long coat-dresses that hung open at front so you could see their breeches. there’s an entire discussion on the fluidity and performativity of gender in hamilton, especially since it’s the feminine-presenting actors who did a lot of that mixed-gender costuming. i’d like to say it’s probably due to the fact that women’s roles in this time period were fairly limited, while this modern retelling of the story seeks to defy those set limits while also making some level of commentary on the lack of women in the narrative of the founding fathers. this is supported by the last song ending with eliza’s contribution to the preservation of her husband’s legacy, and with hamilton visibly taking a step back to allow eliza into the front and spotlight.

now i’ll talk about some specific song stagings that really stood out to me:

my shot - the visual pun of everyone taking a shot during the song

farmer refuted - hamilton literally climbs onto the soapbox and there’s a little tussle – he’s really heckling this guy. like the song makes it obvious he’s giving the guy grief, but in the staging it’s even more obvious. 

you’ll be back - you know how there’s a ton of meta about how this is one of the few songs sung without the entire ensemble’s involvement, because the musical is about democracy, and king george’s solos are about the monarchy where it’s rule by one person? yeah. that, and when he says “everybody!” the ensemble does in fact appear, but they remain static in formation in the background, their hands locked together like they’re at etiquette school. very good visual representation of the tyranny of absolute monarchy. 

helpless - the passage of time in the circular movement of the stage (helpful in the analysis of the next song). eliza collecting letters from her sisters and the ensemble and preserving them in a box.

satisfied - i almost teared up at this song because the staging is so beautiful. it is #flashback goals. i know in the song we get a sense of that in the rewind music, but in the staging it is made all the more powerful because they literally do rewind – the stage turns in the opposite direction, and then angelica sings through the events of helpless. it is the stage version of those special effects shots in movies where the protagonist is the only one moving and the rest of the image and characters are frozen in place. but in this sense, it is extra beautiful because you know there weren’t multiple cameras in place to catch this 3D static movement. we see angelica flip the script on helpless, immediately rewinding and remixing the story so that a song we had just heard through eliza’s point of view is now being told through hers. it is literally an instant remixed fanfiction of the previous song. and it hurts so goddamn much.

ten duel commandments - i mentioned earlier about the ensemble forming a barrier between the duel opponents as the “ten steps” they take away from one another? yeah.

(i’d like to mention here that right before we went to intermission there was that bit about laurens’s death? there were lots of little bridge moments in the show with snippets of existing thematic songs and lyrics that i don’t recall being on the soundtrack. so yeah. and also how hamilton looked at laurens like he was seeing a ghost, while laurens sings. it’s really sad.)

what’d i miss? - jefferson’s return actually establishes his character as a bright, exuberant and pompous playboy character – but you probably figured that out from the soundtrack. the staging hammers it in by having the ensemble members dancing like they’re vegas showgirls, playing with white gloves as they do. 

take a break - phillip raps, and eliza beatboxes, and it’s fuckin adorable.

say no to this - first off, big mood for umfb. like hella big mood? second, this was one of the many instances in which the ensemble was more of a glimpse into the mental processes of the lead character singing. meet me inside was another one – the fairly claustrophobic presence of the ensemble in this, shouting “no” the entire time, really reinforces how much of a pickle hamilton had been in at the time. also, maria reynolds wears red. which is such a huge statement – red means desire and danger in costume designer-speak, so yeah (-cough- the red outfit in umfb that viktor used to skate to belle? ayyyyyy)

the room where it happens - once again, another instance of the ensemble acting as someone’s mental process. this time it really reinforced burr’s anxiety at being excluded deliberately (i feel like washington dismissing him in act 1 really did a number on him haha). 

the adams administration - king george was sitting through a portion of the opening of the adams administration section of the musical. i’m wondering if that’s really part of the staging, since burr (i’m pretty sure it was burr? could have been madison) looked at him like wtf are you doing here

hurricane - the really gorgeous visual hurricane that the ensemble creates through the rotating stage. the ensemble are also responsible for setting up the scenes. 

the reynolds pamphlet - the downpour of papers was an excellent transition into the next song. also, king george was seen reading the pamphlet in the gallery and then tossing his own at hamilton before leaving.

(can i just say, the presence of more than just the ensemble in the back during many of the songs was really neat? seeing leads having cameos up in the gallery was really fun to notice)

burn - another song that was sung without the ensemble, but it’s thematically fitting given how private this moment was, and how the lack of “witnesses” in the form of the ensemble really hammers in the concept of erasing oneself from the narrative 

it’s quiet uptown - i started crying at the end of the last song and all throughout this one. it’s got the ensemble in mourning colours (hamilton starts wearing black and remains wearing nothing but black for the rest of the show; there’s another dissertation in the way the colours of his outfit are symbolic somehow – green outfit for most of act 2 (complementing eliza’s green outfits too i suppose) black after phillip’s death, brown coat in the beginning – but i digress) walking along the rotating stage, with eliza in the middle. she doesn’t look at hamilton. he skirts around her a lot, never touching her (incidentally, in the previous song, he jerks his hand from hers after phillip’s death, because he’s not sure if he can touch her to comfort her, even in her grieving for their son. it’s really heartbreaking), sort of talking at her for a good portion of the song until she puts her hand back into his, and sings the line “it’s quiet uptown” – her only line in this song. it’s like that moment in a narrative where the breaking of someone’s silence is a notable turn in the plot (-cough- “enjoying the view?” -cough-). and then she takes his arm, as the ensemble sings about forgiveness, and i’m dead.

(i wonder if they really cried onstage during that moment in it’s quiet uptown? i like to think i’m not alone in this. like i listen to that song a lot – it’s literally one of my faves because i’m an angst gremlin – but i think i can only cry at things once. the first time i heard it i cried, and now, the first time i see it, i cried as well. there’s something about the first time you hear that song, i guess…)

(jefferson: can we get back to politics? madison: -sobbing, wiping at his eyes- yes, please….)

the bit where hamilton is appealed to for his opinion on the candidates burr and jefferson, his lines for a good portion of the beginning are just “it’s quiet uptown” like he’s desperately trying to stay out of it. i’m sure this is in the soundtrack. it really gets hammered in as he sings it from the gallery, content to remain aloof.

the bit right before hamilton is shot, when he has his giant monologue about remembering death and all of that. this is the third time he does it. it’s like he has flash forwards before, and now he’s getting a flashback to those other moments when he monologued like that before. the ensemble helps him recreate those moments, and he also sees people on the “other side” in the gallery, dressed all in white. eliza, on the other hand, places herself in between hamilton and burr, like she is the last thing he sees before he is shot.

the world was wide enough - “dying is easy. living is harder.” the way burr stumbles through living after hamilton dies really reinforced that line. ouch. and i guess hamilton ascending into the gallery was pretty symbolic, too.

and yeah, i think i talked about the ending of the final song, too. this is really a show where it feels like every single decision, every single move and lighting change and musical shift and costume change, and blocking – everything has some deeper meaning to it. i don’t know how much of this was intended by @linmanuel, and i feel like you’d really have to see the show several more times to find everything symbolic. this is all i can pull back out of my head from this showing, and i really hope no one takes this as a substitute for seeing the show. my words really don’t do this show justice at all. you really gotta see it for yourself (so i really hope there’ll be an official recording made available sometime soon!)

also @kazliin, i’m definitely seeing the bits from “burn” and “that would be enough” that remind you of btds hahaha (also, that line about lovemaking being easy and love being harder? i didn’t actually intend a hamilton ref when i first wrote that, but washington’s repeats of that phrasing structure was like wow. no wonder you thought that was intentional on my part. whoops.) i hope i snuck in enough umfb parallels into this writeup for you. burr really reminded me of umfb yuuri. also, haha, washington’s opening lines in “here comes the general” where he’s like, everyone’s writing home about how eloquent i am but i’m only like that to make up for the fact that this war is a literal dumpster fire? reminded me of you hahaha <3

(though i gotta ask, why do you write like you’re running out of time)