Thomas Kail's Hamilton puts cameras inside a Broadway house and records the original stage production as it was performed, turning a night at the theatre into a 160-minute feature with a 2020 catalogue year.
What is Hamilton about?
Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States and the country's first Secretary of the Treasury, is the figure at the centre of this musical biography. The show follows his public life in the young republic: the ambition that drives him, the arguments and rivalries with the other people shaping a new nation, and the part he plays in building it. All of that is carried by song rather than by ordinary screen dialogue. What you watch is not an adaptation shot on sets and locations. It is the theatre production itself, captured with the company that first performed it, so the staging, the group movement and the charge of a live performance stay intact. The idea behind it is simple and bold: yesterday's American history, voiced by the America of today.
About the cast
The credited company is led by Leslie Odom Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, Daveed Diggs and Lin-Manuel Miranda, with Christopher Jackson, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Okieriete Onaodowan alongside them. These are performers from the original Broadway production, and that is the main reason this recording matters: it preserves that first ensemble at work rather than a later replacement cast. Thomas Kail is the credited director. Because this is a stage musical, the performances rest on voice, rhythm and movement as much as on spoken lines.
Context & significance
Hamilton sits in several genres at once: biography, historical drama, musical and filmed theatre. That mix explains why its audience reaches well beyond regular theatregoers. Someone who will never get near a Broadway seat sees the same production in close-up, while theatre fans get a lasting record of a show that became a stage smash. It is an American production and one of the most warmly received titles in the K-Time library. For Persian-speaking viewers some of the history may be unfamiliar: the first years of the United States, the founding of its financial system and the quarrels among the men who set it up. The lyrics come quickly and are dense with words, so subtitles help a great deal on a first viewing. At two hours and forty minutes it is long for a film but ordinary for an evening at the theatre, and plenty of viewers split it across two sittings.
Watching Hamilton on Ktime
Hamilton is on K-Time with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles. Reading this page is free; playing the film needs a K-Time account, so log in first. K-Time is made for Persian speakers living abroad, and its interface is fully in Farsi on TV, phone and web.