I just made myself really sad thinking about how I’ll likely outlive the original cast of Hamilton.
How do you lose someone so important? Lin’s work is massive, magnificent, and a work of pure genius, but the cast is what made it come alive. Can you imagine anyone but Lin being the first Hamilton? Can you imagine anyone but Leslie being the first Burr? Philippa has set the bar for every other Eliza after her; can you imagine if someone different had had that role?
And I can only imagine what it’s going to be like when the first one of them passes away. How will it feel to have a now-incomplete cast reunion around a casket?
Not all of their deaths are going to be of old age.
All of them are part of the narrative. But not all of it will be remembered. Not all of it can be preserved.
And nobody is getting any younger. All of them are running out of time.
We’ll be older by then, but we’ll still be there for it. We’ll hear the news on the television or see the web article. Starts with one. Then another. Then a few more of them. The number of remaining original cast members will get smaller and smaller. Slowly, we’ll watch as our favorite characters slip away.
I’m really sad now thinking of the quartet: Lin, Anthony, Daveed, and Okieriete. Thinking of them as Hamilton, Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan.
Thinking of what it’ll be like when only one of them is left.
I imagine he’ll pull off the best cover of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables that the world has ever heard.
The last one of those four, kneeling down in the earth at the gravesides, choking softly and whispering under his breath.
Raise a glass to the four of us….
I can only think of what it will be like when we get two very old cast members singing One Last Time with each other, and it turns out to be the last thing we hear from one or the other of them.
The original cast getting smaller and smaller. All of them trying to sort things out, write things down, compile their memories, build something that’s gonna outlive them. Trying to leave a legacy. All of them growing closer together, meeting up more often, and knowing that bad news could come at any moment.
still alive and wondering
