The 78th Tony Awards, hosted by Cynthia Erivo, were held on Sunday, and Maybe Happy Endings swept many of the major categories. As usual, the show included an array of powerful performances, including a number from Real Women Have Curves, but most notably, the 10-year reunion of the original Broadway cast of Hamilton turned the world upside down.
Let’s start with the cast of Real Women Have Curves, who performed “Jugglin” in front of a digital backdrop of a fabric factory. The set design was simple, yet it brought the number and overall setting of the musical to life and made it believable. The sewing tables and machines were not distracting, but the singular moving table that was pushed in halfway through the performance was. All Ana did was type a bit and then sit on the table as it was turned, all for a total of less than a minute. The table was then quickly pushed off the stage. I’m not sure if the table is similarly used in the musical’s full production, but its use in this performance felt unnecessary.
However, as an LA native who remembers the original play and film the musical is based on, I was very happy to see the story of Boyle Heights — a lively and warm community of mostly working-class and immigrant Latine families — on stage at the Tonys. It made me recall another show about a different “Heights” neighborhood — specifically, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights which similarly highlighted the joys and struggles of the working-class immigrant Latine community of Washington Heights. Might Real Women Have Curves see the success In the Heights had? Time will tell.
Speaking of Lin, then came the highly anticipated 10-Year Anniversary Performance of the original company of Hamilton. Immediately, the entire cast being dressed in all-black jumped out at me. I knew it was a deliberate choice in protest of something, but I couldn’t articulate exactly what. That said, I watched this performance live in my living room in Los Angeles County, just miles away from ICE protests and the arrival of the National Guard in Downtown Los Angeles.
The choice for the entire cast to wear all-black is up to interpretation, as all art is, but as Irving Torres stated on Instagram, it was a way for the cast to mourn the death of democracy, as if they’d been attending a funeral for it.
To end the performance with the iconic lyric “I am not throwing away my shot” is another deliberate choice, especially as the cast points outward at the audience. This is a call to action Lin is making to us, the viewers, to not throw away our shot to “rise up” and demand justice for our communities and from our government.
I also like to think that the constant refrain of “History has its eyes on you” at the end of the performance is the first president (played by Christopher Jackson) directly addressing the current president; as if to say future generations will see if we as individuals remained silent and complacent in this wake of assault on our communities, our neighbors, and our first amendment rights; and future generations will see the horrors that the sitting president is carrying out.
Despite the strong and evocative performance, key player Anthony Ramos was left largely unnoticed in the background. Being a fan of his dual performance as John Laurens and Phillip Hamilton (and of him as an artist overall), I would’ve liked to have seen him have a solo like the other leads and supporting artists had in this reunion performance. Ariana DeBose who played an ensemble member in the original Broadway production had more screentime as the Bullet than Anthony who played a main character in the production.
For what it’s worth, Ariana was also the only person on the stage who has an Oscar and even hosted the ceremony the last several years.
I took a step back from the Hamilton performance and thought about the statement it had made. Amazingly, Lin-Manuel Miranda was able to remix a new work of art out of his very own pre-existing masterpiece that itself was a remix of American history. How meta!
The Tonys are always a treat, and I’m happy to know that live theater is still being celebrated when it’s easy to feel like theater is “a thing of the past,” what with the rise of streaming and digital content. I’m also pleased to know that live theater was celebrated at a time when expression is under threat. Against the backdrop of modern day resistance to tyranny, seeing the original cast of Hamilton once again sing a toast to revolution was powerful indeed!