Theater review of Hamilton in Atlanta at the Fox Theatre 2021

In any season, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” has a strange way of scrutinizing the American experiment, in all its passion and frailty, from Revolutionary times to the present day.

The much-decorated Broadway musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton does not just describe an era of great divisiveness. It was born into one.

When it arrived in 2015, “Hamilton” — which employs a racially diverse cast and a rap vocabulary — read, in part, as a critique of American democracy, established on the false premise of equality and still struggling to make right after more than 200 years. With its ominously thumping score and depiction of a dazzlingly intellectual immigrant politician gunned down by an adversary, it described a historic revolution while hinting at some future one.

Since the advent of Miranda’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, the nation has witnessed two rancorous political elections, a pandemic, a cultural reckoning in the form of Black Lives Matter, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Watching “Hamilton” at the Fox Theatre this week, where it finally returned for a second engagement, following a 17-month delay caused by COVID-19, I felt like it was whispering: “I told you so.”

As directed by Thomas Kail and performed by an excellent touring company, “Hamilton” continues to feed and stir the soul, and to raise provocative questions.

When we first see Pierre Jean Gonzalez’s Hamilton, he looks pale and ghostly, as any man who is about to undergo such a poignant journey has a right to. Like many great martyrs, Hamilton, who writes like he’s running out of time and is easily distracted by the opposite sex, seems to will his demise. Some say his affair with Maria Reynolds (Paige Smallwood) triggered the country’s first political sex scandal. Rather than hide his transgression, Hamilton confesses it in a published essay. The act of hubris is meant to defend his legacy; it nearly destroys his marriage.

Though it took a few numbers for this “Hamilton” to find its footing, it does quickly get there.

For this we must thank Gonzalez, yes, but also Jared Dixon’s charismatic Aaron Burr and the glorious Schuyler sisters: the wonderful Stephanie Jae Park as Eliza; the powerful Ta’rea Campbell as Anjelica; and Smallwood, who also plays Peggy Schuyler. Burr may describe himself as “the damn fool” who killed Hamilton, but comes off more as a shrewd and polished politician than a conventional villain. That’s a tribute to Miranda’s nuanced writing — of the book, music and lyrics.

Marcus Choi’s take on George Washington is upright and authoritative. Washington, after all, is the great general and father of the nation. The lord of Mount Vernon can be a bit of a bully, at times, to his green and inexperienced underling, Hamilton.

As the infantile, overwrought and noticeably white King George, Neill Haskell is hysterical. Warren Egypt Franklin’s Thomas Jefferson is fun to watch — his purple velvet suit in one scene may remind you of Prince — though at times, the actor may be just a bit too over-the-top. (To be fair, I’ve never found this rather foppish treatment of the famously dandified Francophile especially funny.) Franklin also plays the Marquis de LaFayette, another character whose immigrant status is not lost on the show’s author.

On a personal note, this was the first time I’d been in a theater since early 2020, and I had some concerns: About getting in and out of the Fox, about wearing a mask for three hours, about sitting in a 5,000-capacity venue.

As it turned out, the Fox has installed a wonderfully efficient security system — no more dumping keys, wallet and phone into a basket and handing it around the portal. Tickets are sent via text, and scanned touch-free. The crowd was mostly polite and followed the Fox’s mask mandate, though I did see some flagrant violations from seated patrons. Happily, it didn’t take long for me to be transported by the show, and forget that I was wearing a mask.

In sum, after a long delay, this “Hamilton” — with all its political and emotional urgency — was worth the wait. It’s a sobering reminder that for all the talk of freedom and equality in this country, by design, the ultimate power belongs to a few.