Notes Concerning Certain Performances of Hamilton
Author’s Note: I submitted a prompt about this idea, and then I submitted a clarification, and by the time I wanted to submit a second clarification, I thought, I should just write the thing.
Summary: They’re in the play! (Little bits of Hamilton/Laurens, Hamilton/Eliza, Peggy/Maria, and lots of friendshipping.)
They go through the requisite amount of hey, this doesn’t look like heaven, this looks like a theater!, which takes… more time than you might think, especially since they aren’t all speaking to each other. Hamilton is refusing to acknowledge anything Jefferson says, Jefferson wants to be addressed as Mr. President, and Eliza keeps deliberately stepping on Burr’s foot. Madison is just glad to not be coughing. He breathes in and out. Nudges Jefferson. Smiles.
It’s Angelica who finds the books.
Some time after that, John Laurens finds the first playbill.
And, well, there’s nothing else to do.
Pity them: they can’t even make the obligatory Waiting for Godot reference.
The first time around, they have to do it all script-in-hand. Eliza plays her husband. Being him, singing and rapping his lines, is like learning a new grammar. By the end of Act One, she’s flushed pink. Everyone has been chanting her name—the longer they say “Alexander,” the more it sounds like “Eliza,” as if all of this is for her—and she’s been moving so quickly, her skin burns, as if she will tear through it, step out, take flight.
In Act Two, she moves on Maria Reynolds—played by Burr—with a kind of ruthlessness. She says he’s left her helpless.
He sings, “I didn’t know any better.”
Here’s the kicker: he agrees. “Yes, yes,” they both sing in tandem.
Lafayette plays Jefferson; Jefferson plays Lafayette. No one can tell the difference. They finally compromise, so that Jefferson plays Lafayette with his hair undone and Lafayette binds his back to play Jefferson. Also Jefferson will stop trying to do Lafayette’s accent, because it makes everyone uncomfortable. They spend hours in the wings practicing “Guns and Ships” and “Washington On Your Side” together.
They all like their doubles because they have all, at one point, been lonely.
(Washington, without wife or family, still is.)
