Just over a month since Hamilton opened in Sydney with its second run, Vidya Makan is still on cloud nine. The Indian Australian actor portrays a lead character, Eliza Hamilton – a huge feat for South Asian representation in Aussie musical theatre.
“I've been waiting to come down from the high of, ‘Oh my god, I get to play Eliza in Hamilton,’ but I haven't come down from the high,” Makan tells Draw Your Box. “Every day, it’s like I'm living in a dream. I'm waiting to wake up from this incredible fantasy. But it's real!”
Whether you’re an avid theatre-goer or not, chances are you’ve heard of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning Broadway musical, Hamilton. Based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the production is known for its hip hop, R&B and jazz-influenced tracks, and colour blind casting of the roles of the Founding Fathers of the United States and other historical figures. Eliza is the wife of Alexander Hamilton, and Makan most admires Eliza’s drive and independence.
“There's a lot that I have in common with her,” says the actor. “When I was doing my research on the historical woman, she was described as someone who walks with a lot of drive and you know, she climbed up mountains without the help of any man. The strength in her is something that I think I relate to, having [had to] to fight my own battles in my own life.”
Makan says she also loves Eliza’s “incredible generosity”, and it’s something she’s learning to embrace more.
“She has a heart that shows the bandwidth of the human heart, and she has an incredible resilience, which I hope to develop myself.”
Performing has been an integral part of her since she can remember. But while Makan has long been a fan of musical theatre, there was a time when she didn’t necessarily believe she’d have a place on stage.
“My family were really worried about me, not because they didn't want me [to do it]. They've always been supportive of my dreams,” she explains, “but they had taken me to see theatre my whole life, and we'd never seen anyone like me playing the types of roles that I've wanted to play.”
She describes university as a “playground” where she learnt many foundations of acting and performing, but once she started auditioning, she quickly learned that the industry still has somewhat of a narrow view of what brown people’s roles in the arts are.
“I just wasn't seen as a full three dimensional human being,” she reflects. “I was seen as kind of a token – like, how do I fit into these very stereotypical racial stereotypes that exist in musical theatre?”
It’s what led to her actually composing and creating her own work, such as The Lucky Country, a 2023 musical that explored the themes of identity, belonging and who we can be as Australians.
“It's not just that I get to create work, it's that I get to create the voices, I get to choose as a writer who gets to tell the stories, and what sides of the stories we get to hear, and that's why I wrote The Lucky Country,” she says. “That's why I feel so inspired by artists like Lin-Manuel Miranda, because that's what he did. He didn't see himself in this world, so he decided to write his way out,” she laughs. “I really relate to that.”
As she’s progressed through her career, Makan’s writing and on-stage performances have worked hand-in-hand.
“The more I'd write, the better I'd get at performing, and the more people would see me,” she says. “And the more that would happen, the more that my writing would come along. For me, they really feed each other.”
Being the representation that many other young brown people look up to is incredibly special, but also comes with great responsibility. There’s pressure to do every role justice, and Makan is well aware of that.
“I'm a brown-skinned Indian woman playing meaty roles on the stage, which I've never seen when I was growing up, and it used to be something that really took it out of me,” she says, “because I do feel that responsibility and I do feel the weight of it.”
Grappling with these expectations her “whole career”, she’s gradually become more confident in pushing aside the noise to focus on her art.
“I’m very, very passionate about what I do, but where I'm at now is that I can't wear that on my shoulders every time,” she shares. “When I go onto that stage, whether I think about it or not, I'm representing different groups of people. Whether I think about it or not, that exists. So I try to let it go, because at the end of the day, I'm not an activist.
“I'm there to do my job, and I love my job. At the end of the day, that's all I really think about now. I just go in there and do the best that I can. I have the most fun that I can, doing what I think is the coolest job in the world.”
Hamilton is now playing at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre. Ticket information is available here.