“As a kid in the Caribbean, I wished for a war,” Hamilton says, introducing us to yet another paradox. The narrative often breaks for news-like interludes about how many have died on the battlefield - or in the water, as in “Right Hand Man,” during which the stage is awash in shimmering blue light, almost drowning, as characters sing solemnly about the 32,000 British troops approaching New York Harbor. Its third track, “My Shot,” vocalizes Hamilton’s own fatalistic outlook: “I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory.” Even as he tends to America’s future, Hamilton is plagued by ghosts of friends and fallen soldiers. The show’s opening number, “Alexander Hamilton,” has various characters introducing the “10-dollar founding father” in the past tense - including Burr, who famously shot and killed him in a duel. But the core outlook that defines this fictitious Hamilton is much more intimate: his fear of death is the musical’s primary obsession. Another has him torn between two women who bring out the best in his head and his heart, the same way he’s torn between the warring pragmatism and idealism inherent to founding a new nation.
Hamilton’s rivalries with Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) are one major thread. (He’s a charming actor, though he’s hardly the best singer in the cast.) It’s certainly an unconventional adaptation of Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton biography, though given Chernow’s wealth of research into Hamilton’s letters and essays, the show’s foundation is distinctly personal.Īnd Miranda’s interpretation of the story is about a great many things.
The music, lyrics, and book were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who takes center stage in the title role. That said, paradoxes are part and parcel of the show’s overarching narrative.Īs a character piece, told through music and impeccable staging, Hamilton remains incredibly propulsive, and incredibly powerful. But for a show that doesn’t give the era’s slave trade more than a passing mention, the use of hip-hop as lingua franca, repackaged and sold to a mostly white and wealthy Broadway audience, feels like a gnawing paradox. On its surface, the show re-casting America’s founding fathers as people of color is a fun twist aimed at re-centering who gets to tell this story. It was made for a different America, and today, it’s easy to wonder whether that America ever existed at all. The show’s more idealistic elements feel illusory in hindsight. It’s a historical play about the kind of American figures whose public monuments are currently being questioned and removed from the public eye, sometimes by force. But five years after its debut, Hamilton’s tone and portrayals clash with the current moment of mass cultural reappraisal stemming from Black Lives Matter protests.
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