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I made a very impulsive purchase last Friday: one ticket to see Hamilton the very next day.
My one-sentence review: “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
Hamilton is the most popular Broadway show in years — possibly even decades. It’s gone beyond Broadway to become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon.
RENT premiered 20 years ago and it’s the closest recent show to Hamilton in terms of cultural impact. I remember singing lease in high school with my friends the way teenagers are singing Hamilton with their friends today. (Then again, it’s hard to compare the impact of a show from the early days of the internet. just check out all the Hamilton tributes on YouTube!)
Sure, there have been other popular shows within the past 20 years, some of them fantastic, but none have been on this level.
Wicked was a huge hit and it’s still cherished by Broadway fans, especially for its music — but it didn’t quite cross over culturally in the same way.
The book of Mormon and Avenue Q broke the mold when it pertains to musicals — but both of them are on the vulgar side and maybe that held them back from becoming a lot more mainstream hits.
The producers was huge, but much of that success was based on its stars, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and the show suffered once they left.
Is Hamilton a once-in-a-lifetime show? maybe it is. but I think it might be a twice-or-three-times-in-a-lifetime show.
“It was simply, as I tell everybody, the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.” –Michelle Obama
And it’s for that reason that I made a decision to spend the money on a ticket. I had just found out that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer, lyricist and star of Hamilton, will be leaving the show on July 9. That’s the day that the Hamilton cast’s yearlong contracts are up, so lots of of the cast won’t be returning.
I wanted to see Lin-Manuel Miranda. and Daveed Diggs. and Leslie Odom Jr. and Renée Elise Goldberry. but who knows who will be staying after July 9? and who knows how much additionally the secondary market prices would go up after the Tonys this Sunday?
So I bit the bullet and purchased the ticket.
It was the best not-AS-expensive-as-it-could-have-been-but-still-pretty-damn-expensive amount of money I’ve ever spent. worth every cent and then some. I have never took pleasure in a performance so much in my life.
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What makes Hamilton so good?
It’s the story of what our country is about, told through the amazing life of one man. Hamilton, at its core, is a story about an immigrant who used his smarts to get a ticket to America, then worked tirelessly to make our country as good as it could be. Hamilton was dazzling — maybe even a genius. He was also impulsive and a bit of a hothead.
How does a bastard, orphan, kid of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar? –Opening lines of Hamilton
So lots of people have forgotten that America has always been a nation of immigrants, and that so lots of people place blame for their economic difficulties on the most recent arrivals. Today’s “Mexicans must just speak English” is really just another “No Irish need Apply.”
That’s why it’s so powerful that Lin-Manuel Miranda composed a show that was told mainly through hip-hop through a cast comprised nearly entirely of people of color. Hip-hop has always been the language of rising up against one’s circumstances.
“I understand how absurd the elevator pitch for this show is,” Lin-Manuel Miranda told NPR. “It sounds improbable. and then once you start hearing about Hamilton’s life story, it sort of makes sense. The mode of storytelling makes sense to the subject.”
Miranda chose to deliberately cast people of color because it was a reflection of how America looks today. The story of Hamilton is the story to everyone who fought adversity and concerned this country with the goal of building a better life. The story of America is the story of all Americans, not just the people who have a skin tone that closest resembles the Founding Fathers.
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