We Were in the Room Where It Happened

Boy#4, MQB, Boy #3. And some unnamed statue.

In the 48 hours since I posted this photo on my Facebook page, I've been asked perhaps two dozen times what I thought of Hamilton, and I've replied with perhaps two dozen different answers.

Unbelievable.

Rave, rave, rave, rave, rave.

Best money I've ever spent.

And while that last review was a bit of an exaggeration (there's a lot of competition for that title) I can say without hesitation that I do not regret a penny of the not-insignificant expense or a minute of the five hours we drove to the venue.

For years I had listened first to the buzz, then to the soundtrack, then to the friends who had seen a live performance of Hamilton. So when the traveling production came to Boy#4's city and he and Boy#3 invited Husband and me to join them for a Sunday matinee, I didn't hesitate. Yes, I wanted to go. Husband, who prefers a good TCM festival to rapped history, decided on a trip to Lowe's instead.

From the moment the first note was sung I felt my face split into a grin that was almost painfully large. During the next three hours I was amazed, thrilled, irritated (high school girls who love soundtracks should be segregated in a soundproof booth rather than seated behind crabby old me who doesn't want to hear them sing along), and was reminded that live theatre is a special kind of magic.

What kind of mind can conceive of and complete this opera, where every word of dialogue is rapped? What kind of artist devises the choreography that supports the music so seamlessly that it feels like part of your own imagination? How can this be so intricate but seem so effortless?

The night before I had been at the keyboard when the our community theatre presented its final performance of Shrek. Community theatre is filled with people I know and love, and the production has been so much fun. When it comes to artistic or technical brilliance, though, it is not on the same level as what is perhaps the greatest musical ever written.

But at the end of Shrek the cast, made up of my friends and the neighbors' kids and the lady who makes the doughnuts, spilled out into the audience and sang the final song. As they filled the little theatre with the joy of "I'm a Believer" I looked past the keyboard to see a couple of teenagers dancing with an abandon my muscles immediately remembered from half a century ago.

It's the same way I know I'll never forget my sudden tears when Lafayette and Hamilton sang "Immigrants! They get the job done!" and the Hamilton audience broke into applause.

Live theatre does that. The history, the love stories, the conflict and resolution--it's the emotional muscle memory of our lives, and we're in the room when it happens.