Hamilton is the musical you didn't know you needed in your life.
For weeks, I had been seeing posts about a musical called Hamilton accompanied by catchy lyrics. After enough wondering, I decided to do research on this new phenomenon. I discovered that it was a fairly recent musical that was currently on Broadway at the Rogers Theatre after a very successful run off-Broadway. The lyrics were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and is based on and inspired by the 2004 biography by Ron Chernow titled Alexander Hamilton.
I know what you are thinking. Hamilton? A musical about one of the Founding Fathers and the man whose face decorates the $10 bill?
I thought the idea of a musical about Alexander Hamilton was crazy. I tried watching the movie adaptation of 1776 and I was bored. How do you make a musical about the American Revolution and actually be interesting to modern audiences while adhering to the traditional aspects of the musical?
The answer is: you don't.
In retrospect, it was a good decision.
Let me start this by saying that I have listened to many cast recordings, and that this is by far one of my favorites.
Very similar to how the rock musicals (Hair, Rent, Grease) were genre breaking, this musical follows in that very same way. The music has a mix of hip-hop, rap and pop influences; styles of music that are not typically found in most musicals. Playbill describes the show as a "hip-hop history lesson."
Hamilton, as you can probably already tell, describes the life and death of the founding father from not only his perspective, but that of the people in his life including the man who kills him, Aaron Burr. With that in mind, you may still be asking how they accomplished a story like Hamilton's and set it to hip-hop.
My advice is to suspend disbelief and just go with it.
The musical is not all historically accurate, because it condenses the timeline and places historical figures in settings that aren't historically accurate to where they actually were. With that said, the most of the historical aspects still ring true to who Hamilton and the men around him were.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the genius behind this genre and race smashing musical. He not only wrote the lyrics, but he also stars as the titular character Hamilton. But, what this musical does is capture the essence of Hamilton and the people who shaped his life into the man we remember.
The cast of Hamilton is racially diverse, a stark contrast in comparison to the real-life figures that they portray. As Miranda put it in an interview, "It's the story of America told by America now." An article from The New Yorker summed it up perfectly:
By setting the tale in a hip-hop vernacular, acted entirely by people of color (King George III is the only main character played by a white actor), Miranda is reclaiming the American story that got told—and still gets told, on currency, in statues, and in textbooks—for the people whom history habitually forgets.
The some of the cast includes Utkarsh Ambudkar (Aaron Burr), Christopher Jackson (George Washington) and Daveed Diggs (Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette). All I have to say about them is how amazing and energetic their performances are.
Not to be left out of the story is the tyrannical King George, portrayed by Jonathan Groff (you may remember him from Frozen or Glee), whose song "You'll Be Back" is one of my personal favorites. It is a break-up song, but with a little kick and a little more death threats.
Are there epic rap battles between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton? Oh yes.
Does George Washington sing a few bars (or ballads)? Definitely.
Just think about this show as a prolonged epic rap battle of history.
Even though the story is primarily centered on Hamilton's life, the story is not short on female characters, namely the Schuyler sisters who were equally influential in his life. The story does not shy away from the ugly and unflattering aspects of his life, including his scandalous affair and the effect it had his wife, not only his political career (it kept him from being president).
Elizabeth (Eliza) Schuyler Hamilton and her sisters, Angelica and Margarita (Peggy), are the three of central characters in a cast otherwise primarily made of men. That's not to say that there aren't other women included in the production because there are and they are numerous. Eliza is played by Philippa Soo, who delivers a powerhouse performance as the woman responsible for Hamilton's legacy. Angelica is played by Rent alumn Renee Elise Goldsberry. Jasmine Cephas Jones plays Peggy and Maria Reynolds.
Even though I have not seen the actual stage version, the original cast recording is so powerful that I feel like I don't have to. This musical is well worth the time and effort it takes to listen, I promise. There is a reason it is a smash hit with a sold-out engagement on Broadway.