STAGE WEST: "Hamilton" presented by Broadway San Diego

For the third time, a national touring production of "Hamilton" hits San Diego.    Photo by Joan Marcus

            This year marks a decade since Lin-Manuel Miranda brought “Hamilton” to Broadway and to the world. Hard to believe.
            That’s not so long that we’ve forgotten how its arrival shook up musical theater at the time, but it’s long ago enough that many people have seen “Hamilton” numerous times.
            Wednesday night marked my third.
            I could tell that it wasn’t the first go-round for others crowded into the Civic Theatre. They cheered, for example, at the very arrival of “Hamilton’s” most over-the-top characters, King George III and Thomas Jefferson. Some rapped along to “My Shot.” At times it was like your favorite legacy band had begun to play the first few bars of one of their biggest and most familiar hits.
            As for me, I was curious before the show started how I would react to seeing and hearing “Hamilton” again. The first time a national tour of the show came through San Diego, back in 2018, I was fairly blown away even if my sky-high expectations had primed me for the littlest disappointment. By the second time, in the fall of 2022, I was jaded – the novelty of “Hamilton” having dissipated, and I probably nitpicked the show afterward.
            But the third time charmed me all over again. True, I still left the theater believing that Act One, with its deep-seated fire and American Revolution ferocity, is far superior to “Hamilton’s” more personal, ballad-endowed Act Two. And believing that one funny King George ditty is good … two all right … OK, but three! – played. Yet this time around I appreciated aspects of this groundbreaking musical that perhaps I’d overlooked in the past. Like how sophisticated and athletic the choreography (conceived by Andy Blankenbuehler) is. How clever and precise and, when necessary, biting are the rapped lyrics written by Miranda, and how challenging it has to be for the performers doing them. All of this I’d taken for granted because it was, well, “Hamilton.” The great, revolutionary, everyone’s-talking-about-it “Hamilton.”
            This current touring production brought many of these realizations home. Was it my imagination or did even the acoustics in the often-troubled Civic Theater confines seem a non-issue, permitting me and others to hear most every word (except for a couple of occasions on opening night where an actor’s mic had cut out)?
            It may be recency bias but for me Blaine Alden Krauss is the best of the Alexander Hamiltons I’ve seen come through San Diego. His first-act Hamilton is stalwart without mere swagger and he possesses all the sensitivity of voice and movement required of that more personal second act.
            I also admired Deon’te Goodman’s Aaron Burr, played as adversary rather than villain, though this was how Miranda fashioned the role of the condescending rival who ultimately kills Hamilton in a duel.
            Kameron Richardson is commanding (yes, a lazy adjective) as George Washington.  As with every production of “Hamilton” I’ve seen, Washington’s exit from political life (“One Last Time”) is in my book the most genuinely emotional note in the heavily emotional Act Two.
            The sweet-voiced Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama is this tour’s Eliza Hamilton and, again as Miranda envisioned the character, more prominent in the second act. Her closing moments in the story, after her husband has been killed, remind audiences of Eliza Hamilton’s considerable contributions to American history. In retrospect the character is a bit underwritten – maybe someday an “Eliza Hamilton” musical will see the light of day.
            I’ll tell you one thing that occurred to me, more than once, as I experienced “Hamilton” for the third time: There are times when human beings of any gender or ethnicity or creed are devalued and pushed too far and oppressed too severely, times when they must rise up.
            The Founding Fathers have whispered in my ear.
            “Hamilton” runs through May 18 at the San Diego Civic Theatre, downtown.