Hamilton!

I finally watched Hamilton during its Philippine run at The Theatre at Solaire.

I will admit that I was not expecting to like it all that much. In fact, I wasn't originally planning to watch it. That's because I watched a clip of Hamilton a couple of years ago and the segment I saw involved some rapping, which is really innovative because it's not common for musicals to involve rapping (in fact, I don't know any other musicals that feature rap). However, I felt like it wasn't my cup of tea, at least not when it comes to musicals. However, my family said they were interested to see Hamilton so I decided to get tickets so we could all watch.

I knew that tickets were extremely difficult to get and on top of that, many people also struggled to get multiple seats that were all next to each other, especially for those who purchased the day tickets went on sale on April 24. I bought mine in early July, more than two months later. As such, I wasn't expecting to get good seats, much less adjacent ones. However, I lucked out. On the day I made my purchase, I somehow found six adjacent seats, with one of them being an aisle seat, on the second row of the balcony on a Saturday matinee. Wow! I couldn't believe it! How was that possible? I figured that someone must've cancelled their booking shortly before I went online. Naturally, I snatched those seats up immediately.

Now that I've gotten to see the show, I have to say I'm really happy that I did. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, maybe because I wasn't expecting to like it. I can understand how this musical won 11 Tony Awards. It was an amazing production, with inventive storytelling, catchy songs, great costumes, and excellent performances. I also really liked the rotating stage. As it turns out, one of the rap songs - My Shot - ended up being one of my favorites (despite my original negative bias against rap in musicals).

I have since watched the Broadway version on Disney+ and the cast in the Manila show were equally good (and in my opinion, in some cases, even better). My favorites from the cast were Darnell Abraham (George Washington), Brent Hill (King George), Jason Arrow (Hamilton), and Deaundre' Woods (Aaron Burr). Darnell's performance of One Last Time was absolutely superb! Brent's performance of You'll be Back was incredibly entertaining and I especially loved how he sang it, will all his nuance and dynamics. It was also great having Rachelle Ann Go in the cast, playing Eliza.

It's great that Hamilton made its way to the Philippines and that I was able to take my family to see it.