As this UK and Ireland tour is launched, it’s tempting to say that Hamilton is back. But Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical has never really been away. Right now there are five rooms where it happens: in New York, Chicago, London and Manila as well as Manchester, where an outstanding new ensemble deliver its irresistible lyrics with verve.
Miranda’s subject is unwieldy – the US’s newfound independence and constitution, seen through the eyes of its first treasury secretary and told in a whirl of rap battles and revolutionary pamphlets, equestrian attire and elegant robes à l’Anglaise. It runs at more than 20,000 sung-through words but what is most striking, seeing the musical again, is the clarity, economy and unity of storytelling in the songs whose phrases return to be cast in a new light.
Miranda has a gift for distilling emotional states – the burn of ambition, gnawing regret, euphoric new love – and for finding, as the song goes, the quiet moments in the eye of a hurricane. In Thomas Kail’s production, co-directed with choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, the staging is as supple as the verse and propelled by a revolve stage. David Korins’ set design uses unfussy brickwork and wood, the barrels and crates of New York harbour fit for repurpose. The rigging is matched by the sinews of an industrious, bare-armed ensemble who lunge, salute and load invisible weaponry, their moves conveying the triggering of a gun through to the deadly impact.
But never mind who lives and dies, who tells this story? In the lead role it’s the assured Shaq Taylor, a revelatory Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar at Regent’s Park Open Air theatre. Taylor convinces as a poetic dreamer, goofball and fervent nation-builder – a man realising his own potential as he strives to do the same for his country. The production has the unusual distinction of a qualified solicitor playing lawyer Aaron Burr. Sam Oladeinde conveys a legal mind at work, lends smooth enunciation to a character defined by his indecipherable nature, and delivers The Room Where It Happens as if possessed. Taylor and Oladeinde, alone but together, perform the ode to parental pride, Dear Theodosia, with fragile beauty.
As Hamilton’s father figure George Washington, Charles Simmons has the right weathered authority and KM Drew Boateng brings gruff-voiced combustibility as Hercules Mulligan. Billy Nevers’ Lafayette appears drunk on his own rhymes before Nevers returns in scintillating form as Thomas Jefferson, voice as smooth as his velvet (costume design by Paul Tazewell).
As Eliza, Maya Britto builds her young family’s world carefully, ensuring a devastating poignancy when it shatters in the songs Burn and It’s Quiet Uptown. Aisha Jawando, as Angelica, attacks the usually more controlled Satisfied with a fitting rage of frustration. Throughout, lines are given fresh readings by a cast in full flow and full control. Even Peggy is less of a drag here (Gabriela Benedetti, returning as an electric Maria Reynolds).
Daniel Boys’s King George, wearing sparkly crown and shit-eating grin, is every inch the spoilt child. As the bewigged monarch attempts to keep up with the freestyling ensemble during The Reynolds Pamphlet, you have a flash of just how ridiculous an 18th-century hip-hop musical could have looked. But Miranda’s contribution to the “unfinished symphony” of America remains a work of bulletproof brilliance.
At Palace theatre, Manchester, until 24 February, then touring
