| Angelica in "Hamilton" | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 08:27 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 08:18 am EDT 07/05/20 | |
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| My point is a quibble, but it's the same one I felt in 2015, and has gnawed at me since. I've brought it up here, but the release of the film re-opened it. Angelica has little to do once she completes "Satisfied," one of the most stunning character songs in musical theater, arguably given the most electric staging in the piece. Staging that is perfectly captured in the recorded presentation. The character really gets two introductions, one with her sisters, in which she dominates, and then that deeply reflective entreaty for a way to process tiered irresolution in her feelings for her brother-in-law. She is set up to become an invaluable sparring partner, Alexander's intellectual equal and occasional consigliere. She then has a few exit lines in "Non Stop," reappears briefly for a family visit, scolds him with two lines about his adultery, and tells us about her nephew's death. Maybe that's enough, but to me "Satisfied" isn't balanced with another moment in act two that might at least demonstrate what the epistolary relationship in Chernow's book reveals. The role's stage time is brief, which isn't in and of itself determinative of dramatic weight. But we're given considerable insight into this woman's contradictory reactions -- the painful regret, losing "a mind at work," larded with epiphany about the trade-off -- and then she doesn't pay it off by shaping Alexander's decisions in the action. Or even in counseling her sister. She glibly informs Alex she's married a lesser man for his money -- a throwaway that he isn't as witty. Even as a supporting player, she doesn't feel finished*. I had a conversation with two friends about a year ago, who knew the album backwards, and always assumed she had more to do in the full production (a not uncommon misconception; several people didn't know the album is the show, with two notable deletions). Someone said she assumed she had a "scene" that isn't sung somewhere in the second act. I said it's a quibble, and it is. But seeing all of the action via close-ups of the stunning Goldsberry doesn't erase this reaction. *I know there's a cut song from act two; I heard it once |
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