Hamilton with Understudy?

Have you seen the musical Hamilton? If you haven’t seen it, and a chance comes along, I highly recommend you see the show. Yes, the topic seems dry. Alexander Hamilton, that guy on the ten dollar bill who has something to do with the financial system?  Yes, him. I promise it will be great. Even if the guy playing Hamilton is the understudy. Which, last night, Wonza Johnson was.

To be fair, the difference in performance ability between the understudy and the star might be quite small. It might be splitting hairs. On a touring musical, with 8 high-intensity shows a week, I suppose an understudy gets more action than in a less physically demanding tour.

And taking on the role of understudy is a time-honored way to get the experience for bigger, better, starring roles. The fellow playing Aaron Burr, Nik Walker, previously understudied Burr on Broadway. Where presumably he learned a thing or fifty about the role and choreography.

Understudy or star of the cast, both were fantastic.

It can be the same way, can’t it, when considering the star of a movie, vs. the supporting actors? Just because the role is smaller in the scale of the story doesn’t make the performance of less quality.

And so too, if we broaden that thought out beyond the idea of performances, to the rest of life. At any given moment, someone is always the star and someone else is a supporting actor or waiting as understudy to show what he can do.

It reminds me of some classic supporting actors. Think about one of the most popular, classics – the Christian Bible. And one of the stars–a key player that many people know about even if they aren’t Christian–is Moses.

But Moses wasn’t alone in many of his actions. There was his brother Aaron. And his right-hand man, Joshua. Joshua is probably best known for leading the Israelites into battle, or leading them into the Promised Land.

Moses, on the other hand, is known for being in the midst of many high-profile, grand-gesture type of events. The burning bush. Leading the Israelites out of Egypt on the morning following the first Passover. After all the plagues, of course. The ten commandments–which God had to make twice because Moses broke the first set. Getting the instructions for the design of the Ark of the Covenant. And so on.

But it makes you wonder about Joshua. Joshua was both supporting actor and understudy to Moses. Supporting actor before reaching the Promised Land, and understudy promoted to lead when the Israelites went into the Promised Land.

What was Joshua thinking about, all that time he waited? It wasn’t all action, spying and fighting and so on. No, there would have been a lot of downtime. Some of it, he would have been quite alone. Such as waiting for Moses to come back out of the cloud on the mountaintop, both of the two times Moses went to receive the ten commandments. Each of which took at least forty days.

Or, approximately–and an odd synchronicity–the length of time Hamilton is running in Cleveland, OH.

Best Supporting Actor

There is no mention of his preparation,
what he carried for that long bivouac.
Nothing about the days he spent waiting,

believing something he must witness
was to come from the cloud.
Six weeks, each time. Up, down, up,

down. What he ate, no one knows.
Not even manna is mentioned. Nor
who he missed in those moments alone,

what he feared, desired, hoped. What he felt
of his place as understudy. All lost
to fire, cloud, a voice made of thunder.

How he persevered? Unrecorded. None
know if he cowered or if he prayed. Prayed?
Yes certainly, he must have prayed.

Sharp and dull alike the rocks would wound
him, prostrate at the cloudy foot of God.

If you enjoyed Best Supporting Actor

You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.

Have a great week!