How Matu Ngaropo survived and thrived as George Washington in Hamilton musical
Matu Ngaropo in the George Washington costume he’s worn in Hamilton for nearly 700 performances. Photo / Daniel Boud
If you play George Washington in Hamilton, you are the wise warrior figure. The soldier on his way to becoming a statesman and POTUS No 1. The commanding officer and mentor to the guy with his name on the marquee.
No, the Broadway show that since 2015 has become a pop-culture Mt Rushmore to your fellow Founding Father Alexander Hamilton isn’t about you. But you’re still out front on many of the show’s hip hop-powered songs, which are delivered at roughly 144 words a minute in 140-plus minutes on stage.
Plus, your Washington gets the best entrance of anyone. Early in Act One, he swaggers on to the sound of Right Hand Man/Here Comes the General, a song that is part Gilbert and Sullivan, part Eminem and part heavyweight fighter ring announcement.
After nearly 700 performances of the Australian production, Matu Ngaropo is not at all sick of the fanfare.
“It never gets old,” he says with a laugh from Whakatāne, where he’s been staying with whānau between the Brisbane and Auckland seasons. “But it can be really overwhelming when that introduction is happening. When I’m walking onto the stage, I am not thinking about anything else except walking to the right place, in the right timing, doing the right choreography, grabbing my sword at the right time and making sure that it’s going into my scabbard … If I listen to the roar of the audience, or the introduction, then I’m not going to be ready to fulfil the moment.”
Ngaropo first pulled on Washington’s boots, breeches and bluecoat in Sydney in early 2021. He finally hangs up his sword this month at the end of the show’s Auckland season. He’s added some personal touches along the way. As creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said after finally seeing the production in Brisbane: “Well, it’s the first time I saw haka moves in the Battle of Yorktown.”
Ngaropo says in rehearsals the performers were encouraged to bring something of themselves to their roles.
“I remember looking around the room thinking I’m probably the oldest and one of the more experienced, so I felt a responsibility to be brave with bringing our Māori culture to the rehearsal floor.
“I thought about what it meant to be a leader, what it means to be a rangatira, what it meant to be a leader of an army, and that is something in our history with the Māori Battalion and my links to the East Coast.
“So, when you see the show you’ll see a whole lot of nods to being Māori – not a way that takes over the storytelling but punctuates it.”