Hello Scribblers. Happy Wednesday. This week I thought I would focus on something a little more in my lane, so to speak. I decided to share my thoughts on Hamilton: An American Musical (Eric and I watched it this weekend). Let’s get started shall we:
I enjoyed it. The musical was well acted and the singing was excellent. The End.
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Now that we got that out of the way, and those that aren’t interested in my opinion have moved on I can continue. If you are still reading this, then you might be a tiny bit interested in what more I have to say about Hamilton. Here we go:
Typically, I try not to buy into all the hype. When Hamilton came on the scene and everyone was clamoring about this amazing new musical. I held my breath. Tickets were selling out in minutes, you couldn’t get in for months on end, tickets were being sold by scalpers for more than a car, etc. I was worried. Don’t get me wrong I wanted to see it, I was hoping to catch it on tour, but tickets, as stated, were almost impossible to get. So we waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, six years later, one pandemic, and paying for Disney+ we got to see it. Yay!
Okay, wait, before I go any further I want to say a few things. One, I’ve acted live on stage. Two, I’ve worked for a Theater. Three, I’ve worked on musicals. Four, I’ve seen musicals on Broadway. Five, I’ve been on TV before. Six, I’ve been going to the theater since I was a kid. This is where I’m coming from and I have one more thing to add. Theater, acting, and musicals are not easy. They are hard in fact. Which is why I no longer do it…well that and being told by a Director that I would never be cast for anything more than a sidekick or as a minor character for a walk on role.
As I mentioned I enjoyed Hamilton, the acting was great, the singing was… wow, and the story was well crafted and told. A musical biography cannot be easy to create, yet here it is.
However, for me, it fell flat. It started off slow with a lot of exposition. There was no stand out song or musical number, well, I guess you could say, My Shot, was meant to be the stand out and I loved the sound, but it didn’t have that staying power I was hoping for. In fact, writing this I had to check the album to ensure that I had the song and the name of the song correct. Despite My Shot, being the second song written for the musical, I was hoping for it to be more. Even Alexander Hamilton (the first song written), the opening song, was good, but again the song didn’t catch me or draw me in.
That wasn’t my only issue with the musical. The staging was good, not great, given how powerful the story was, there was so much more they could have done. When staging is done well it can transport you. This didn’t do it for me. I’ve seen shows with minimal staging and sets; Rent and Our Town come to mind, they did excellent jobs and I felt like I was there as they transported me to their worlds in their musicals. Hamilton didn’t do that for me, I will say, that what they did do and how they used the stage was impressive.
Additionally, the meaning of the musical, to me, feels like it was written with a political message in mind, which is fine, but at times it seemed heavy handed. This is a historical musical written about actual people from history, so the message, the politics, I believe, are already there and should have been natural, however Hamilton took every opportunity to remind the audience of what it wanted you to take away, they even stopped to break the fourth wall to ensure the audience did in fact get what they wanted you to get.
The message; I appreciate everything that Lin-Manuel Miranda tried to do with this musical, however, he was selective on what he wrote about Alexander Hamilton, especially when it came to slavery and Native Americans. In general, our history has been whitewashed and we are typically only taught the rosy pretty parts of American History, however, American History is anything but rosy. Our history, much like the rest of the world’s history (after all we are not the only ones in history to do terrible things to our fellow humans), is messy. Awful atrocities have been committed to give us the world we have (good and bad). I was actually hopping for Hamilton to really hit this message hard and to not shy away from some of these lesser known and darker parts of history, but it didn’t. Yes, they did do a few brief mentions, but nothing more then a nod and moved on. Which was a bummer.
The cast, okay, here me out…
I loved the cast and everything about them was incredible. I couldn’t have been happier with the actors… I bet you thought I was going to say something less then flattering…nope. I loved the casting. Personally, my favorite was Jonathan Groff as King George, every time he was on stage I knew we were going to be in for a treat. I also loved Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton and Daveed Diggs as both Maarquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Honestly the whole cast was fantastic and I don’t have anything bad to say about them.
In summary, I could never do what creator Lin-Manuel Miranda did. It amazes me what he has given, and continues to give, our world. The music, the story, the characters, the tongue and cheek nods and winks to the audience, it was all brilliant. I just wanted more, I wanted Hamilton to live up to all the hype, and for me, sadly, it didn’t.
All that said, feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below. So, these are my thoughts on Hamilton. Do you agree? Do you have different thoughts? Did I miss something? Please let me know. Until next time, please stay safe, wear a mask, support each other, and practice social distancing.