PRAISING A PRESIDENT
Brandy McDonnell says “Hamilton” lives up to the hype
Almost three years after its Oklahoma debut was announced, Oklahoma City is finally getting its shot at “Hamilton.” Don't throw it away. As hard as it is to fathom any musical living up to pop-culture phenomenon's level of hype — the records the show has smashed, the slew of awards it's snagged and the startling way it has tapped into the cultural zeitgeist — “Hamilton,” like its subject, surprisingly manages to overachieve.
The chart-topping Tony Award-winning score spotlights the intelligence and audacity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's rapped-through and sung-through biopic of “ten-dollar founding father” Alexander Hamilton. But you have to see the show to experience how much heart it has.
Andy Blankenbuehler's choreography, David Korins' scenic designs and Paul Tazewell's costumes turn Ron Chernow's biography of the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury into an engrossing epic.
The second national tour opened its threeweek OKC run Tuesday at the Civic Center. Any doubts that the company would rise up to the high bar set by the Grammy-winning Broadway cast recording were eliminated by the now-familiar opening number of Wednesday's performance.
Miranda's groundbreaking score, which fuses hip-hop, R&B and show-tune stylings, as well as his inspired idea of tapping racially diverse performers to play the real-life heroes of the American Revolution, infuses the period drama with contemporary resonance.
But it's his canny book chronicling the tragedies and triumphs of the brilliant but flawed men who forged our country that takes the founding fathers out of the formal portraits and breathes life into them — and by the end, draws some of the women who helped birth our nation out of the shadows of history and puts them center stage. Soaring through her blazing anthem “Burn” and her heart-baring ballad “Helpless,” Oklahoma native Erin Clemons supplied the show with its sweet soul as Hamilton's wife, Eliza.
“Hamilton” is playing through Aug. 18 at the Civic Center. For information and tickets, which are still available, go to OKCCivicCenter.com.