I HIT THE HAMILTON LOTTERY!!

There are so many great shows that are about a subject that seemed unlikely except to the composer/lyricist that I don't question anything anymore. A musical about a painting? Sounded weird but "Sunday in the Park with George" is one of my all time favourites. You just never know.

 

They did a DVD release of a live performance of RENT towards the end of its Broadway run. That's what I want. Preferably not 15 years from now.

 

I would argue that it's the smartest piece of contemporary art we've seen in a long time. It manages to blend so many different genres together in a way that feels totally organic, but also completely original. It's telling a story that's historically important to our country, in a way that's not only highly entertaining by also 95 percent true, and the more you listen to it, the more layered you realize it is. You think, when you hear the premise (Really? A musical about our least famous founding father, told through hip hop?) that it seems like gimmick, that it will feel inauthentic or forced. It doesn't feel that way at all.

In the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda shows he can not only write rhymes that are on the same level — in terms of skill, structure, subject matter, delivery and storytelling — as a pantheon rapper like Notorious B.I.G., Andre 3000 or Eminem, but he ALSO writes love songs and pop songs that are not only catchy, they move the plot along. It's like a confluence of all this amazing talent coming together and telling the story of America in a way that feels familiar, but also completely unique. Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom and Chris Washington and Philipa Soo are so so good in their roles, Manuel is almost the second most important character in every scene, expect none of it would be possible without him. On vacation, he picked up a little-read copy of a great historian's autobiography of Hamilton and immediately thought "This is like the most American story ever told. How do I not know more about Hamilton? How has no one ever given him the credit he deserves?"

One of my favorite aspects of the show is how many echoes there are. Half the songs have earworms that you can't get out of your head, and those earworms are woven into other songs that also have their own earworms. Songs are layered (and layered) with not only complicated, smart lyrics, but callbacks to stuff we've already heard and already fallen in love with. Miranda's brain is like a melting pot for so many cool aspects of American culture, he's taking everything he grew up loving (musical theatre; hip hop; a love of U.S. history; a love of New York) and making it into ONE THING. Throw in the fact that Miranda is the son of immigrants, telling a story of maybe our most important immigrant, AND he's flipped the casting of the Founding Fathers around so that they (even the slaveowners, like Jefferson) are played by black men ... it's just hard to put in words why it works so well.

Posnanski wrote something that I think nails it: I wish I could put you in the room. I wish everyone could see this, because even the professional contrarians who go into it thinking it can't be THAT great end up walking out of the theatre saying: Holy shit. Eventually there will be a Hamilton backlash. You can already see it simmering a bit, because there is always a backlash to anything that becomes too popular. Reject it with every ounce or your soul. It's bullshit. This play is great, and when I see people trying to argue it's not that cool and I don't get it all it tells me is that they haven't seen it, or really even listened to it. When Dick Cheney and Barack Obama both think something is great, it says a lot about how it bridges all cultures.

I could write about this for hours, but a few more things:

It almost redeems Aaron Burr, one of history's great villains, even though Burr still shoots Hamilton in a duel at the end, and he is generally portrayed as a douche without principles throughout the three hour play. Burr is essentially the play's narrator (a technique Miranda took from Jesus Christ Superstar, where Judas is the narrator) and he sings two of the best songs. He is a layered and complicated character who, ultimately, is STILL the villain.

One last thing, with two links to help make my point:

It's ultimately a play about U.S. history, and Miranda wrote historically accurate songs about the American Revolution, but he managed to do in ways that cover almost the entire American tradition of songwriting.

Take Guns and Ships, which covers several true events (Marque de Lafayette helping lead our battalions in kicking British ass; Hamilton getting asked by Washington to return to his side and help end the war; the Battle of Yorktown):

Then consider that the same man wrote The Room Where it Happens, another song about a real life event, the famous dinner compromise between Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison where Jefferson and Madison agreed to support Hamilton's financial plan to have the federal government assume state's debts in exchange for moving the capital to the Potomac. We don't entirely know what exactly took place at this meeting, because our understanding of it comes entirely from Jefferson's writing (and Jefferson and Madison did not like Hamilton) but MIRANDA ADDRESSES THAT ASPECT IN THE SONG with the funny refrain "Thomas claims..." and that "No one else was in the room where it happens." Now throw in the fact that the song is sung mostly from Aaron Burr's perspective, jealous that he wasn't there, and you begin to understand, holy shit, this deep.

I can't even comprehend how talented and smart Miranda must be to see all of these different threads and tie them together AS ENTERTAINMENT.

I can only appreciate and enjoy it.

 

Well, I guess that about covers it. Thanks, DD. Great insights there.

 

So did you like it then?

 

It checked all my nerd boxes.

 

There are people lined up in Chicago for blocks on end in from of my office for tickets, I'm assuming. Many of them look like homeless people. It doesn't look like the theater-going crowd. Scalpers? A lot of them were already there last night.

 

I downloaded the cast album and now have just about all of it memorized. The interesting thing to me is Miranda is a vocal lightweight in the presence of the rest of the cast, but as DD mentioned, he really holds the whole thing together. There are times when Diggs sounds like one of those disclaimer guys at the end of commercials, he's spitting words so fast. The whole thing is just enthralling. It's Quiet Uptown is one of the most beautiful, heart-breaking pieces of music I've ever heard. Some creative license was taken, particularly on the Angelica/Eliza/Alexander timeline/relationship, but it really is eye-opening on the relationships that spawned our country.

I'm super bummed that Miranda is stepping down. That said, if I can see the road show for $200 a ticket (one can dream ...) that'll seem like a bargain.

 

I just listened to an old This American Life where they had Miranda turn one of their old stories into a Broadway-style musical. It was very good. 21 Chump Street.

 

Not Hamilton, but I had my first Broadway experience yesterday and saw The Oh, Hello Show. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

 

Same. was thinking if Hamilton, Ontario lottery like mega millions or power ball.