The ending of the seminal musical Hamilton has had fans and spectators alike speculating on the meaning when Phillipa Soo's Eliza Schuyler simply gasps at the empty stage in front of her.
Phillipa Soo's performance in general has garnered plenty of praise.
Eliza's gasp at the end of the show is intentionally ambiguous, but people are thinking that perhaps:
"When he goes behind her, he's no longer Alexander, he's Lin."
"He takes Eliza's hand. He lets her know that it's OK to go. That's Lin. He's playing himself. He's guiding her to the top of the stage. She breaks the fourth wall. She sees that he told her story."
Lin-Manuel Miranda addressed the various theories about the gasp, saying:
"I think it's different for each Eliza."
"I do think that it traverses time, in some way, whether that thing she's seeing is Hamilton, whether that thing she's seeing is heaven, whether that thing she's seeing is the world now. I think those are all valid and all fair. I do think she is seeing across a span of time."
As this weekend when Hamilton came to Disney+ is the first time many people have gotten to see the masterpiece, the theories are as fresh as they were upon the musical's debut in 2015.
Theater thrives on theories—once theater is welcomed back into daily life, we hope to see more works like Hamilton.
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