ℋamiltonian

I’m trying something different, writing this directly on WordPress using their text editor We’ll see how this comes out.

I want to write more about Hamilton. It’s one of the landmark musicals, one that represents something truly new. It’s remarkable how it accomplished that while staying true to many recent musicals, by using traditional forms. The music and dialogue are revolutionary but it’s still a throwback, American history that’s all singing and all dancing. They even keep the orchestra in the pit. For generations that was the norm but now it’s an exception.

It had an effect on me that the classic musicals shared but I’ve found rare since the 1970s, i come out of the theater humming the songs. I’m still humming them two days later. The biggest earworms are King George’s songs, you don’t need to remember lyrics!

There was nothing about the show i didn’t love, the book, the music, the orchestration, the choreography, the acting, and the singing. I adjusted to the voices different from the cast album after one song.

The toughest part of the show for me is accepting annoying Jefferson. He’s one of my personal heroes. He and Hamilton were  political enemies, not personal. Madison joined Hamilton in writing the Federalist Papers.  If you’re wondering about their relationships and other history facts, repeat to yourself it’s just a show and sit back and relax.

Some people are bothered by the ethnic blind casting. I’m the kind of person that is often bothered by changing settings and characters just to be different. I’m not bothered here. It doesn’t matter why it works. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s motivations don’t matter. All that matters is that it works. Hamilton is a young urban man from a disadvantaged background, young, scrappy, and hungry, and that sets the tone.

The rapping got all the attention but there are plenty of conventional songs, There are plenty of great conventional songs. That’s why you leave the theater humming them. One of these days Hamilton will be performed in opera houses. It’s as much an opera as The Magic Flute. 

I’ve seen three shows currently on Broadway, three of the best I’ve ever seen, Hamilton, Come From Away, and Hadestown. All three speak to the current political scene. What is Hamilton but a paean to a poor immigrant from the Caribbean; as Hamilton said to Lafayette, “We’re immigrants we get the job done.” Casting our founding fathers as blacks and Hispanics is a political statement. It’s accepting that they are Americans and patriots. Not being to be sent back where they came from.

Hadestown doesn’t just have a song, <i>Why Do We Build the Wall</i> but portrays Hades as a Trumpian figure that wants workers to thank him for their exploitation. The “jobs creator” as a god and the workers as so desparate for work that they put up with the degradation.

But what of <i>Come From Away</i>? How does the tale of foreigners on planes, grounded in the wake of 9/11 in Newfoundland speak to today’s politics? The people of Newfoundland when saddled with an overwhelming number of refugees did not fear them, they didn’t complain what a burden they were, they welcomed those who come from away to the rock. Saying that Americans should act like those Newfoundlanders is a campaign platform I could get behind. We should be looking at refugees from the Bahamas and the northern triangle a potential Hamiltons, offer them the chance to kiss the fish, and become one of us. I should talk to the Warren campaign and see if we can organize a Broadway for Warren event.

In the performance on Sunday the standby Jimmie J.J.  Jeter, played Aaron Burr. He is also the standby for just about every male character. He was marvelous and we were thinking he could do a one person Hamilton, playing every part, maybe with puppets. How about that as a campaign event?

I don’t have my usual writing aid, no spell check and no word count. I don’t know how long this is. It might be very short. Whatever it is, it’s finished. I’m happy that I was able to write it at all.