Copyright 2022 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing, Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved. You know what happens when you plagiarize- it's not nice anyway. Please be kind.
Opinions are my own. Rated for ages 16+ for language content. Reader discretion is advised.
Written October 16-17, 2022.
So, it's been a year since I wrote my most popular post, the "Deep Dive at 3 in the Morning" from Midnight Mania... more than 60 views on that page as well, wow.
It's also the anniversary, or book birthday, of G'morning, G'night by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun.
And guess where I am right now? Take a guess. You won't believe this.
I'm at the Hippodrome Theatre, celebrating the event, by watching the musical of which I spoke of two years ago in 2020.
That means we have now officially come full circle here. It took two years to get there, but I'm here now. But I have been so long against Hamilton ever since it came out in 2015, I used to hate it with a passion. Now that it's been seven years and I finally got to see it on the live stage for the first time, things have changed, oh my... I'm so sorry to make you guys wait, I know you've waited long enough. Let's skip to the highlights again here...
I was so tired after the 16th from a long drive from my boyfriend's home in Harford County to get back to Baltimore for the show. I couldn't stop yawning before and after the show because I had been up since 8 a.m. and been on the road for almost two hours going to and from the theatre. In between, however, was an extraordinary experience that I almost wanted to repeat again, because I was alert and excited from start to finish.
It was a little toasty in the theatre because there were too many people in the audience and coming into the spacious lobby. It was basically a sold out show, and the crowd was immense. Alexander looked like he fit right in, wearing his adorable suit and bow tie, and I was looking like a fool in my crocheted Eliza gown, complete with blue corset and a bonnet, and my friend from college dressed the best way she could in a Schuyler Sisters t shirt she ordered online for this show. But the air was so terrible that I was worried one or both of us, me and my friend who went to the show, was going to have a panic attack, and it almost happened.
It was a good thing I ate a pretty good lunch at the Red Bowl Vietnamese Asian Fusion restaurant across the street, but then again, the meal pretty much went right through me because by the end of Act II, I was hungry again and it was only after 4 in the afternoon.
I was about to take a picture of me and my sweetie in our seats at the Hippodrome, but there were staff people holding up signs that said, "Please no cell phones." So all I did was take out my phone to unlock it and then turn it off.
And the voice of Mad King George III boomed over our heads saying, "Welcome to Hamilton! Please turn off all electronic gadgets, and any audio, video, or photography recordings in the theatre are prohibited. Thank you. Enjoy MY show!!!!"
Everyone was laughing at his ridiculousness. We all knew that it was his stupid villainous antics.
And the one thing my boyfriend Alexander noticed in there was the paintings above the theatre stage overhead- He said that there were three muses in that painting, three of the nine muses that represented the theatre and the arts in mythology. This was actually all new to me and an eye opener as well.
My favorite line in Hamilton has always been, "I'm past patiently waiting, passionately smashing every expectation... for the first time, I'm thinking passed tomorrow..." And the actor in the show delivered his lines with such gusto and pride, being one of the best Alexander Hamiltons I've seen in my life since Lin-Manuel Miranda's original cast performance before he finished the show and left for other projects. This was also probably my boyfriend Alexander's favorite performance since the Disney + version.
Aaron Burr gave me chills on "Wait For It" and "The Room Where it Happened", of course. A very worthy and scary adversary to the hero of the story. I sort of wondered why George Washington was stalling in his lines, but I pushed it away because his showstopper "One Last Time" was absolutely stunning and heartbreaking at the same time. Angelica was hilarious in the beginning when Aaron Burr tried to flirt with her, but that quickly faded on "Satisfied", for she became a powerhouse of light and electricity in the storm. Eliza even started to be a little bit silly on "Helpless", starting to be just as silly as Hamilton's funny dance when he lands her father's blessing... But by Act II, her performance of "Burn" almost drove me to tears. She was probably the best Eliza I have ever seen in my life. (But I adore Philippa Soo nevertheless.) The original actor playing Hercules Mulligan and James Madison wasn't there for the stage performance, but his understudy or swing was absolutely perfect for the role, delivering his lines as Hercules brilliantly in both "Aaron Burr, Sir" and "Yorktown".
But possibly the most breathtaking moments were when someone dropped lights and a chandelier over the stage for my favorite part of Act I, also my favorite song, the end of "A Winter's Ball" and going right into "Helpless". And when getting to "Satisfied", the lights suddenly went away and everything was moving in reverse, the cast and crew moving backwards when you heard Angelica say, "Rewind." It was the most powerful moment in the first half of the show before intermission. But in Act II, the scene with "Hurricane", was actually, surprise to me, my mother's favorite scene when she watched it on Disney +. At the same time I was watching it on the stage, I got a bigger picture of how Hamilton was in the eye of the storm and you could see the lighting depicting the winds and lightning, with the cast and ensemble holding up furniture and people and props like you were actually watching a real storm. The captivating intense scene of how Lin-Manuel Miranda was able to put a live thunderstorm-tropical vortex on a stage, it was as if you were actually seeing the real tornado picking up Dorothy's house and seeing the house land on the wicked witch.
In the words of the cast members in "The Reynolds Pamphlet": DAMN.
But here's what sold me. This was the real rub. I was blinking back tears in the end of "The World Was Wide Enough" and actually choked on Baltimore's Alexander Hamilton's words in his spoken monologue, in which he executed beautifully, holding up his weapon and saying to Aaron Burr: "If I throw away my shot, is THIS how you remember me???!!!"
That moment right there was the moment where I learned the true meaning of ending violence. This show was about ending gun violence and promoting the end to all of these fights, terrible wars, and school shootings, all at once. I hung on every word of that monologue where there was no music, no beat, no melody, and no rapping- it really was a soliloquy as I thought. And 100 times better than Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel.
And I thought of my friend Robbie Greenberger, who passed away from complications following treatments for leukemia.
And I thought of my dad. Two years since I lost my daddy to cancer this December 31.
No musical EVER makes you cry twice, until now. It was hard to take near the end, but totally worth it.
That's why one of my new favorite t shirts says on the front: "Past Patiently Waiting. Black Lives Matter." complete with the Hamilton logo. I now have a button with Hamilton and Eliza on it, along with a Playbill, and a golden quill pen that writes in black ink. The Playbill has a lovely new home in my bookshelf, all cozy and tucked in my copy of G'morning, G'night that I also brought with me to the show to celebrate four years since Miranda published that book.
The staff at the Hippodrome were terrific as well in caring for all of us, especially for my friend who wasn't the best with crowds, neither was I. I gave her the biggest hug of my life, which turned into a group hug with my boyfriend as well, she needed it.
And I got to meet one of the fans who suckered me into falling in love with the musical as well. Pretty much everyone has been so kind and nice to everyone, and we loved every second of it. Every moment. Even at intermission as I was waiting to use the bathroom, I was even shocked to find a woman who had seen the show in New York with the original cast, and she complimented me on my dress, plus the woman behind me, going, "Did you make all of that yourself?"
"I designed it!" I said. "It's all crochet, based on Act II of Eliza's costumes."
The women surrounding me in line for the bathroom were all in shock, saying, "That is impressive! You look amazing!" :)
It was horrible that I didn't have that much access to my phone after the show or even during intermission so that I could take more photos, but I was finally able to breathe when I came home that night to find my mom finishing up watching the streaming version of the show on TV. And that's when my mom told me her favorite part of the show, which was "Hurricane". She said that it is the one thing in musicals that has never been done before, where everything is moving in a complete slo-mo of a vortex, bringing a hurricane to the stage, which is mesmerizing.
For me, it was a literal record needle scratch- where George Washington is singing while on a moving part of the stage, going from stage right to stage left... just like the needle of a record player...
And we were lost in the show again.
Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the newest King of Broadway, for getting me to fall in love with musicals all over again. Long may you reign.
As for King George, the villain, he truly was the comic relief in all this, only the actor who played him on the Baltimore stage was even more ridiculous and laughable.
And the songs "Alexander Hamilton" and Yorktown"? The songs I didn't like? I didn't mind it one bit anymore.
I love this show. There I said it. This is one of the reasons I love being a writer to write about triumphs.
Worth every second.
And now we've come to the conclusion of Eliza's Story: Long Live the King of Broadway. Sorry, this is it, guys, it's the end of the series, I've actually done it.
Now all I have to do next year is get my butt in gear and get to New York in 2023.
I love y'all. Na night. Oiche mhaith.
-The Lady in the Blue Box
THE END. (Finally!)
Playlist Selection to end this long dissertation-
A little bit of a jazz version of one of my favorite Pharrell songs, Gunhild Carling is an incredible virtuoso of music, playing all kinds of instruments, even playing three trumpets all at the same time... This woman blows my mind! Here is my new favorite viral video sensation, Postmodern Jazz, led by Scott Bradlee.
Plus, the newest song from Meghan Trainor that I was listening to yesterday on the drive to Hamilton at the Hippodrome, another great 50s throwback that I just love to death-
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