primeideal

Saw Hamilton today! Guy climbing into the seat next to me way in the back like..."pardon me, are you 304, sir."

The other guy next to me had a granddaughter in the row ahead of him, and apparently she and her friend noticed me reading "What If 2" by Randall Munroe, which I'd just gotten at the library, and they had also just gotten, so they texted him to be like "...hey, we recognized that book from the adjacent row." :D Nerds!

The performance style seemed a bit more recitative than sung at times. I especially noticed it with Burr in his intros. Some of the commentary has pointed out "Washington tends to be most stressed out when he's rapping, and most at ease when he's singing (One Last Time)." But Washington in his tent meeting Hamilton didn't feel stressed, just conversational, talky. "I need someone like you to lighten the load." OTOH, at the end of "One Last Time," it was clear that this performer really can belt, he adds some vocal wavy up-and-down-ness (I forget the technical term) that I felt was unnecessary but still impressive.

Also, this production felt a bit...huggier than others I've seen. "Say No To This" was very well-acted, Maria was great, and James Reynold was wearing an ostentatious cowboy hat like...howdy partner, give me the bribe money.

Burr: Hamilton, are you crushing on Seabury?
Hamilton: absolutely not, he's terrible.
Burr: you started singing a duet to harmonize with him, that's kind of shippy
Hamilton: what
Burr: it sucks being the only one aware of the fourth wall

Phillip says "I gotta be my own man, like my father, but bolder." And then a few lines later, "how about when I get back we all strip down to our socks."

Conclusion: this conversation happened.

Angelica: well if he had only been willing to have a threesome in the first place none of this would have happened
Phillip: what
Angelica: never mind you're too young
Phillip: I'm nineteen
Angelica: listen, when your dad was stressed out about the banks, we tried to get him to take a break, but did he listen? no.
Phillip: Well, that's a mistake I will never make.

Yes, yes, I caved and bought Disney+ for a month or two even after they broke Star Wars, I'm a hypocrite. Or I just really like musicals.

A few thoughts on things I noticed, some specific to this production, some not:

-Some of the criticism I've seen is how Eliza and Angelica can be boiled down to stereotypes; there's the Sweet Feminine One, and the Smart Sexy One. (See also, Galinda and Elphaba.) However, when we're introduced to them the very first time, it seems as if Peggy might actually be a major character. She's the goody two-shoes, well-behaving one ("Daddy said to be home by sundown"), Angelica is the rebel, and Eliza is pulled in between. So in some sense, we see her change from being more like Peggy to more like Angelica over the course of the story.

-Washington is sometimes portrayed holding a sword, but in "Right Hand Man" when he recruits Hamilton, he signifies it by handing Hamilton a quill to write with. "The pen is mightier than the sword," but also foreshadowing how Hamilton will help Washington write the Farewell Address that became one of the major achievements for them both.

-"believe me, these young men don't speak for me"--Washington is the moderate Virginian/Southerner who's like "yeah, Hamilton and Laurens are military geniuses, I definitely need them to win this war, but...they are a little too much at times." Sort of interesting considering how he's being viewed now.

-Dear Theodosia is, at first glance, a nice song about parents' dreams for their children--"You will come of age with our young nation. We'll bleed and fight for you, we'll make it right for you. If we lay a strong enough foundation, we'll pass it onto you, we'll give the world to you..." Hamilton and Burr fought hard for independence so their children would grow up in a somewhat more free society. And as Hamilton admits in "Nonstop," the Constitution isn't perfect yet, but it's a starting point. Except, both Hamilton and Burr outlive their children. D: What is that supposed to tell us about the democratic experiment?

-"Hamilton wrote THE OTHER 51" this seems to anger Burr on a personal level.

-The lyrics of "Washington on Your Side" are very well-done. Take a close look at who says what: Jefferson and Madison are actually criticizing Hamilton's policies (the central bank/assuming debts); Burr just talks about "look in his eyes," "somebody has to stand up to his mouth." (In other words, "talk less.") This is the perfect illustration of "Jefferson has beliefs, Burr has none," but it's subtle.

-The king is hilarious, he has pouty lips during his first song. Then when the aide comes on to whisper "John Adams" and he echoes it back in disbelief, she is giggling helplessly. And then he basically sings along with Burr during the intro to "The Adams Administration"!

-We see George Eacker "up in his box" watching a play within a play--Shakespearean trope.

-Eliza wails and screams when Phillip dies. (Also, when you can't skip over it, the whole Phillip/"It's Quiet Uptown" plotline is so sad.)

-Burr does a fistpump when the voters sing "when you could get a beer with him." Like, yessss, W. Bush coalition unlocked.

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In other news, I have a lot of feelings about  the Three-Body sequels, but I'm not sure if I can or want to write them up. But I might go watch something silly now to rinse my brain palette.

Attended a new musical about the life of Albert Einstein and his first wife. Called ahead for the possibility of rush tickets and was just told to get there 20-30 minutes early; did so, had to wait for standing room, sigh. But made it.

Here is a broad-strokes outline of the plot:

Act One:
-our hero is born, is brilliant, has daddy issues
-goes to college, hangs out with the bros, impresses them immediately
-is too cool for stuffy old profs who just don't understand him
-flirts with ladies
-publishes a bunch of papers in a short time

Act Two:
-seduced by another women who leads him to cheat on his wife
-wife is like "bleep that guy"
-his son is hurt and negatively affected by this and has mental-health issues as a result
-enemies are out to persecute him, not just because they don't understand his genius, but also because he's a member of a stigmatized minority group
-moves to NEW JERSEY and New Yorkers are horrified by this
-despite trying to seek peace, brings about an extremely weaponized and violent situation and is not happy about it
-his legacy? pretty much everything.

So...yeah, stop me if you've heard this one.

A couple other parallels from other plays: Max Planck is the Sir Lancelot of this group, portrayed as "not only am I incredibly smart and talented, but also I am phenomenally sexy and everyone wants to get in my pants!!" And the act one finale is kind of like that of Proof: "wait did a woman do all this math? That would be shocking and inconceivable, since women doing math is such an unusual and noteworthy thing!"

There were a couple cool ideas in the second act. The "general relativity is like a weight in a blanket" insight is "inspired" by his son jumping on the bed, which is so over-the-top that in context it actually works. And the stuff with the development of atomic weapons...I don't know, they seemed to be trying too hard to pull too many things together with "oh no I cheated on my wife who did the math, and now there are nukes, that sucks," but the "explosion" was pretty stunning in context. But yeah, in general, just felt like they were rushing to fit in too many set pieces/stock tropes.

So various dreamwidth users came up with the idea to post silliness in February (under a variety of names) to ease the acculturation from Tumblr/not be so serious all the time. Me being me, I'm likely to ramble on anyway, but maybe I'll be less self-conscious about it? (ha ha ha ha ha)

melannen came up with a generator I've modified to suggest random combinations of topics, but today I have silly thoughts about FTL. Unlock-wise, I got the "defense drones..." achievement with the rock (the trick is to fire more than one at once to disable the drones), and then today I completed the Federation Cruiser quest! Cool beams. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, instead of Hogwarts sorting or whatever the other tropes are (I like Ajahs from Wheel of Time, myself, but that's another story), the cool new typecasting should obviously be stereotyping characters by species in FTL.

Humans: "common and uninteresting," quick to improve at skills
Zoltans: low HP, can power systems
Engi: robotic, good at fixing things, bad at fighting
Mantis: fast, good at fighting, bad at fixing things
Rock: high HP, slow, immune to fire
Slugs: can sense lifeforms, immune to mind control, live in creepy nebulas
Lanius: only available in advanced mode, don't need oxygen and in fact suck it out of rooms
???? there's some kind of bonus species but I have yet to find their homelands, it's a mystery.

Anyway, with regards to something like Hamilton (because that deserves more silliness and less endless rants);
Hamilton: human. A million things he hasn't done, but he learns fast.
Eliza and Angelica: Zoltans. I guess they could be different species if we're going the mixed-ethnicity angle, but I like the contrast of Eliza being the sweet and non-warry one, and Angelica being all like "electricity! wait till Ben Franklin sees this."
Burr: Lanius. Antisocial and aloof, off doing his own thing.
Washington: Rock? Going around stomping out fires. Maybe a Mantis, but he also has to be a smart executive.
Mulligan and Madison: I think also Rocks. Hercules is big, Madison thinks slowly and then says one-word utterances. Sure.
Jefferson: Slug?
Maria and James Reynolds: also Slugs? IDK what the stereotype is for Slugs (nebulas are scary, I try to avoid them), but I would think they'd be kind of the socially manipulative ones...?
Laurens: Zoltan? Not actually that good in a war.

Anyway, you get the idea.