‘Hamilton’ is always a memorable theater event

I wanna be in the room where it happens / The room where it happens / I got to be in the room where it happens

The politician Aaron Burr sings about the secret dealings of a closed-door meeting with the founding fathers: Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But I employ the song differently: If Hamilton is being staged at a nearby theater, I’m in the room where it happens.

It’s difficult to fully explain the phenomena that is Hamilton. Not since Rent has there been more popular enthusiasm for a Broadway show. That’s not true. Not since Oklahoma! has there been a similar watershed U.S. musical theater production.

We were deeply intrigued by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s freshman production, In the Heights. But Hamilton followed, and nearly everyone — from prepubescent middle schoolers to arthritic adults — is fascinated. Quite simply, the genius of the musical is that it not only redefined the Broadway landscape but also reshaped the way American history is perceived. In a revealing summary, Miranda has said the musical is “America then, as told by America now.”

Hamilton’s widespread popularity is evident in the Broadway Across America production at the Eccles Theater: a usual four-week-long run and nary a seat unfilled. It’s an immensely enjoyable staging of Miranda’s epic achievement.

I was deeply attached to the stunning trio of the Schuyler sisters — Lencia Kebede as Angelica, Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama as Eliza and Milika Cherée as Peggy/Maria Reynolds. Each is a magnetic performer. While married to Eliza, the flirtatious undertone of Alexander to his sister-in-law Angelica deepens our understanding of his relationships, along with Hamilton’s repentant fall with the temptress Maria.

I always tear up at Eliza’s “Burn,” of her humiliation when Hamilton publicly reveals his infidelity. Along with “It’s Quiet Uptown,” when the married couple slowly begin to reconcile.

Where this staging falters is the replacement actors playing the two main characters: understudies Alex Nicholson as Hamilton (normally played by Blaine Alden Krauss) and Josh Marin as Burr (normally Deon’te Goodman). They go through the motions, but their sincerity and attachment to other characters are sadly lacking. It’s most keenly felt in the first act.

Bursting to open the second act is Simon Longnight as Jefferson, returning from being the U.S. ambassador to France, in “What’d I Miss?” His bebop revelry is contagious.

King George III is always a hoot, and Paul Louis Lessard mines the royal mockery as he sings about how he would win the war and keep America as a colony in “You’ll Be Back.” The Revolution was an impersonal political act, but to Hamilton’s King George, the war was a personal rejection.

Hamilton invigorated the art of musical theater. With a ticket in hand, theatergoers will long remember seated in the theater where it happens.

►Through Sept. 1, saltlakecountyarts.org/events/hamilton