For the past 10 years, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson Hamilton has been enthralling audiences on Broadway, on tour and in productions around the world. So it is probably old news that it is a brilliantly original breakthrough work of musical theater. That it is, but by now the question on potential ticket buyers’ minds has shifted to the quality of the road show that has arrived at the Kravis Center for a two-week stay.
In that sense, it is a pleasure to report that the necessary care has been taken in casting, staging and production values to deliver all the excitement of this highly improbable theatrical experience. For who would have guessed that a musical centered on a lesser-known Founding Father of this nation, told in a brazenly anachronistic style and inhabited almost entirely by people of color would be so enthusiastically acclaimed and commercially successful?
Any musical on the scale of Hamilton is necessarily the work of many individuals, but much of the credit for the novel approach of this show must go to Miranda, who conceived and wrote it — music, lyrics and book. Still, it is the whole package, with contributions by his frequent collaborators — director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and music supervisor Alex Lacamoire – that makes this such a memorable, epic three hours of theater.
By now it is well known how Miranda’s chance encounter with Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton led to his fascination with our first secretary of the Treasury and designer of our federal financial system, among other distinctions. Not bad for an impoverished orphan immigrant from the Caribbean.
In the “young, scrappy and hungry” title role, Blaine Alden Krauss radiates a cocky self-confidence that earns him enemies. Notable among them are Aaron Burr (Deon’Te Goodman), whose primary claim to historical significance is — spoiler alert! — killing his lifelong rival in a duel and Thomas Jefferson (Jared Howelton), pitted against Hamilton in several rap-off policy debates. Fortunately, though, Alex is favored by George Washington (Carvens Lissaint), commander of the revolutionary army, who encourages him to be a writer, not a fighter, leading to his major contribution to the Federalist Papers.
Hamilton is also seen as a romantic, quickly smitten by both Angelica (Lencia Kebede) and Eliza (Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama) Schuyler, two upper-class flirts and New York City boosters. The former is particularly adept at Miranda’s tongue-twisty lyrics, while the latter — chosen to be Hamilton’s wife — is a steadfast spouse who assumes the mantle of his legacy in the show’s dark final moments. Also worthy is Milika Cheree as Peggy Schuyler and, more significantly. Maria Reynolds, whose affair with Hamilton accelerates his political downfall.
The crux of the show is the rivalry between Hamilton and Burr — Othello to Iago in Shakespearean terms — played out against the Revolutionary War and the birthing pains of this new upstart nation. But beyond them, Miranda provides show-stopping numbers for a rock star-like Jefferson (“What’d I Miss?), Washington’s farewell address (“One Last Time”) and a trio of puckish solo turns by Paul Louis Lessard as Britain’s King George III.
The virtually sung-through show brims with kinetic energy thanks to Blankenbuehler’s dance moves and Kail’s artful panoramas on concentric revolving stages. Factor in David Korins’ versatile wooden unit set, the late Howell Binkley’s explosive lighting. Paul Tazewell’s period costumes with contemporary touches and Nevin Steinberg’s vital crystalline sound design and you have a production that all tours should aspire to achieve.
HAMILTON, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, April 21. $49-$249. 561-832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.