An Unlikely Telling of an Unlikely Tale – Hamilton: The Musical

Lin Manuel Miranda as the eponymous Alexander Hamilton on Broadway, NYC.

How does a bastard, orphan, son 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?

LYRICS FROM ‘HAMILTON’ BY LIN MANUEL MIRANDA FROM ‘HAMILTON: THE MUSICAL”

This was the question I asked myself too, as I sat in excited anticipation for the show to start. I’d heard great things about this musical, and remembered how, back when it first came London in 2017, tickets to Hamilton were rarer than gold dust. Finally here I was, with the chance to see it for myself.

I came to the show a completely clean slate – other than some peripheral knowledge of the American Revolution and its key players, along with the comments I’d read or heard about how this musical ‘hit different’. And I think this is the ideal position to be in when you see Hamilton, because you need be affronted by this show and everything that comes with that in order for it to make its optimum impact and to truly enjoy it.

Well I’ll Be Damned!

And boy was I affronted! As a middle-class white woman growing up in cosmopolitan London, I am no stranger to people and music from a wide range of cultures, nor do I consider myself prejudiced against any such cultures, in fact I would consider myself very open-minded and culturally curious. But what I faced in Hamilton was something quite different. And I surprised myself by not getting it, at first.

As someone who grew up watching shows in the West End of London as often as I could, I was not unaware of the fact that people of colour were massively underrepresented in the casts of the shows I saw. They were present, but not to the same degree that I saw them presented in the people around me in my day-to-day life. I would ask myself why this was the case, and the answer I told myself was simply because there weren’t enough ethnically diverse characters depicted in the classic theatrical or musical canon. They were predominantly the stories of white people, played by white people. That was until I watched Hamilton.

Here comes the General! The Pride of Mount Vernon!

Here Comes the General! George Washington!

LYRICS FROM ‘RIGHT HAND MAN’ BY LIN MANUEL MIRANDA FROM ‘HAMILTON: THE MUSICAL”

As I heard these lyrics proclaimed I readied myself for the big reveal of the man, the myth, the American military legend. To say that I was shocked when I realised that THE George Washington – the archetypal descendent of white European settlers – was being played by a big, bold – and, might I add, brilliant- black guy, would be an understatement. I am ashamed – but not afraid – to admit that at first it made me a little uncomfortable, which is something I had never encountered before. But I’m glad that it did.

George Washington played by Trevor Dion Nicholas at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London 2022

Why exactly did it shock me, though? I – a young, open-minded, liberal-leaning woman who’d grown up in one of the most multicultural places in the world – why was I surprised by it so much? I found myself losing focus on the music for a little while I processed it. Was it because I felt a black performer unworthy of playing Washington?? Absolutely not. Was it because I felt the show was somehow using a person’s race as a kind of gimmick in order for the show creators to make the show appear more ‘woke’? Maybe. Was it because I felt it somehow disrespectful to historical accuracy to portray Washington in this way? That’s possible too. Whatever the reason, I felt myself acutely aware of this man’s race and ethnicity in a way I might not have been normally, all because he was portraying the life of one of the most famous white men in American history.

But I think that is exactly what the show’s creators wanted me to feel, because in doing so I was affronted by the very thing I knew existed but I hadn’t really experienced so starkly and so viscerally until now – which is that racial judgements, and indeed prejudices, occur all the time, even by those of us living in today’s more accepting and cosmopolitan world, and they occur more than we might care to admit. It sounds obvious or naiive to put it like that, I know; ‘Woah, you’ve only just realised people are judged by their race, where have you been?!’, but this was a whole new level of awareness I had genuinely never faced before – and all because a black actor was playing George Washington.

As much as the choice to cast a more diverse group of actors highlighted race, it also highlighted how colour isn’t important either. Whether it’s Hamilton’s rag to riches story, the loss of his son, his infidelity, his fall from grace, the betrayal of a friend, these are themes everyone can relate to, and in a funny way, by making the diversity of the cast members ethnicity more obvious it somehow simultaneously made the universality of the human condition all the more clearer too. I found my heart aching for Hamilton as his life came crumbling down around him, regardless of the colour of skin or the beat he sang it to.

Alexander and Eliza Hamilton mourn the loss of their son Philip

Rise Up

When asked why he used hip-hop and other African American forms of music as the influence to write a musical about an American man of white European descent, the shows creator Lin-Manuel Miranda draws parallels between the hardships and resilience of the founding fathers, particularly Hamilton, and the nature of the musical genre itself:

“That’s hip-hop. It’s writing about your struggle, and writing about it so well that you transcend your struggle”.

FROM THE PREFACE TO THE HAMILTON MUSICAL THEATRE PROGRAMME AT THE VICTORIA PALACE THEATRE, LONDON

And there are certainly plenty of examples of hardship in Hamilton’s life; from the abandonment of his father, the death of his mother and also his cousin by suicide which left him an orphan, or the tragic and entirely preventable death of his son. But I think Miranda’s use of African American music as a basis for the show lends itself to the story of Hamilton in so many other ways too.

Hamilton (right) with Mulligan, Lafayette and Laurens

Setting aside its subtle reference to Hamilton’s beginnings in the Caribbean, and the reality that African American music has its roots in oral storytelling, Miranda’s use of what is now a highly popular musical genre enables him to do something every decent historian should aspire to do; that is to make history relatable. It tears these great, almost mythical, men from their reverential pedestals and gives them a voice that many people can connect to. Even more simply than that, it just makes everything more fun. As an educator myself I can’t fully express the joy I felt at the prospect of a young person coming to see this show and learning more about history merely through listening to Miranda’s meticulously researched lyrics, let alone the possibility that this new-found accessibility to history might inspire them to go off and research more of it for themselves.

What’s more, I think there are some distinct conventions of African American music which Miranda uses perfectly to mirror and highlight the machinations of politics – most notably the ‘Cabinet Battle’ numbers where Hamilton and Jefferson literally perform their own ‘Battle Rap’ in order to win favour with President Washington. Take me to the Houses of Parliament or the Senate and tell me that isn’t exactly what they are doing, but far less eloquently(!).

With regards to the political, it also can’t be ignored how much of African American music was borne out of an act of a rebellion and self-expression. What better genre of music to act as the vessel through which bold, precocious Alexander Hamilton and his fellow revolutionaries voice themselves.

Provoke Outrage, Outright

There’s no doubt that Hamilton has plenty to rub some people up the wrong way. But I think that’s precisely the reason why everyone should give it a go. Whether it’s the issue of race, historical representation, colonialism, or the future of musical theatre, Hamilton is a show that demands reflection, discussion and debate, and for a musical about the American Revolution, I would expect no less.

Victoria Palace Theatre, home of the current run of Hamilton in London (2017-present)