A play predicated on early American History centered around one of the less well known founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. In particular his efforts as first Secretary of the treasury. And by all initial accounts the history was pretty accurate all things considered. Truly 'riviting' stuff right?
The cast of the show is pretty much as color blind as it can be with no regard to trying to cast 'accurately' based on the ethnicity of the various historical characters. I'd say the more shocking element of this is how shocking some find it. Personally I consider the need to have accurate ethnicity represented in things like plays/movies etc... is less about accuracy than it is about a fundamental underlying assumption about the importance of race no matter what is said on the surface about how meaningless it is or should be. Put another way... for example: In depicting the figure of George Washington, what he stood for and how he managed what he did is far far far more important than that he was a white guy. But put a black George Washington on stage and it seems that is all folks can talk about. Why is that if race is unimportant?
Finally, the music is largely centered in contemporary hip hop style with bits and pieces here and there of more traditional show tunes. And it was done well enough the album has made it well up the charts.
So think about that for a second. A historically accurate (well essentially accurate) play sung in hip hop about the founding fathers by an ultra diverse cast. I do not question for a second how this would get popular on Broadway in New York. It does not however, explain a rise on the charts for the music independent of the stage performance indicating a much wider popularity than a Broadway musical typically garners. I became intrigued.
I first began hearing about this odd combination of things through a rather odd channel. Adam Savage kept raving about it as part of his Tested.com podcasts. They even dedicated a whole spoiler cast to it where it was the primary topic. If you go looking through the list of topics of their spoiler casts Hamilton leaps out as "one of these is not like the others". Most of the other things on tested like this I am well versed in and know plenty about. When Hamilton cropped up I was initially clueless what they were talking about. The more I heard the more intrigued I became. Then I found that Google Play and Amazon Prime both have the soundtrack available. I listened to a couple of tracks... And kind of went about my business. Only to get Lebowski'ed.
Background: I know a bit more about Hamilton as a Political Science major than the average bear. You can't get through any study of the founding of the Constitution and the Federalist papers without getting a good dose of Hamilton. While he in large part got written out of the larger popular origin story most students get tortured with in school his contributions are substantial areas of study for any real dive into the start of the nation. After all, there is a reason his mug is on the 10$ bill even if (well until recently) the vast majority of the population probably couldn't have even named him, much less why he was in the company of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin ETC... The amazing thing is how much of that survived AFTER his role has been in large parts diminished in popular history. In parts overshadowed by the insanity of his death at the hands of Arron Burr and his personal life scandal which combined provide most of the dramatic excitement of the play... And some of the least accurate history if still based on a core of truth. The rest is just due to the rather dry subject matter of founding the economy of the US and funding of the fledgling government. Boring accounting stuff that reeks of Wall Street mumbo jumbo. Fitting seeing as he is in large parts credited with starting Wall Street down the path to becoming the world wide economic force that it became... For good or bad.
So what do I mean by Lebowski'ed? One of my favorite movies of all times is the Cohen brothers "The Big Lebowski". When I first saw it I probably would have classified it as one of my least favorite. I was not particularly taken with it. But it just stuck in my head. It wormed its way in. It is one of the finer examples of studios having no clue how to market unusual content that defies classification. My initial disappointment was due to expecting a fairly light hearted goof off movie in the vein of Dumb and Dumber rather than the almost art house dark comedy it was.
My initial brush with the music of Hamilton was not nearly as negative. But it was still more of a 'meh' than a 'holy shit'. I listened to the opening track and 'Take a Break'. Or more accurately I think I listed far enough into the sound track that I heard both and they were the ones that registered. I thought... Interesting. The rapid fire was clever and the harmonies pretty damn awesome. But in general Hip Hop has never really captured me musically. Prior to this about the only song in this vein I could say captured me at all was "Lose Yourself" by Eminem.
But bits and pieces of those songs stuck. Refrains kept sneaking back up on me. My brain kept working to unravel what it had heard. Which normally I don't do. Lyrics can stick in my head for 'singing along with the radio'.... But they rarely stick on a conscious level.
Then I had to drive to Houston for work... And I queued up the album, cranked it up. And somewhere around the Battle for Yorktown I experienced something I had never experienced before. I had a movie playing in my head from a set of songs. This is what happens to me when reading a book I like. I stop seeing words on the page and start experiencing a movie in my head. I listened to it again. And got more. Again. More. Again. The music form for all its catchiness is still not exactly the greatest thing for me. But the words. The imagery. The emotion.... Those all speak to me very much regardless of the delivery mechanism. And apparently they have found a hold in a large swath of people as evidenced by the popularity the music has attained.
So lets look a bit deeper into the historical side of this. I had a fairly good understanding of Hamilton's role in the Federalist papers and how he shaped the early US financial landscape. But little else. His war history and ties to Washington were a bit of a surprise as was his link to the Marquis De Lafayette. And I had not encountered the Reynolds affair... and had never really dug more into the Duel with Burr. The story as told in the songs is way to pat... I knew that. So I grabbed the Chernov biography that inspired Miranda to see how far he had to twist things to get such a dramatic story. And found that surprisingly enough the twisting was ultimately fairly minor. Here is what I have so far at about half way through the biography.
1- The Caribbean pre-story leading to Hamilton making it to the new world is surprisingly accurate. The only real egregious dramatic interpretation that stood out to me was to latch onto the somewhat questionable characterization of Hamilton's mother as a "Whore". It seems that was more of a claim of her first husband used for gain rather than anything rooted in literal accuracy. Makes for catchy and memorable setup in the titular song though... and its continual call backs through out the play emphasizing just how far Hamilton climbed from his humble beginnings. And this is to some extent a semantics issue. She was decried publicly as a Whore by her Husband who wrangled some legal repercussions out of her choice to pursue an extramarital relationship. Historical study seems to show the claims were not based on any kind of literal fact of say her working in a bordello or otherwise literally prostituting herself. Miranda using this side of the story is more like continuing to spread bad rumors in order to prop his boy up more. It may be the only real questionable twist of the story told by Chernov as far as I can tell.
2 - The image of Hamilton with Burr, Laurens, Muligan and Lafayette in a pub is pretty inaccurate and is overlaying Hamilton's kings College Days with his stint as Washington's aide de camp. The Burr connection at this point is substantially stronger in the telling of the play than was in reality. However, that said there were connections to all of these characters. Burr was not Charles Lee's second so Hamilton and Burr did not meet as seconds on the 'field of honor' when Laurens dueled Lee in the aftermath of the battle of Monmouth. Also, the connection with Seaburry with that fuge like back and forth over the rise of the rebellion is not terribly well explained in the play but is otherwise pulled largely from the pages of the biography. This was a teenager taking on a reigning politician anonymously through the paper publishing games of the day.
3 - The courting of Eliza Schulyer and the link to Angelica were also dramatically shortened and highlighted respectively. That there was a deep affection between Hamilton and Angelica is accurate. Anything more has been a source of academic speculation since... well hell when they were alive. But the dramatic license used to have Angelica pass on Hamilton does not seem to be anywhere near accurate. But as with the early introduction and strengthening of the Burr connection this really does not detract for the core of the accuracy of the story and unlike the use of Whore to describe Hamilton's mother with zero shading/nuance I wouldn't exactly classify this as misleading. More a reasonable extrapolation of how things could have gone down. The other surprise was that Miranda chose not to utilize the reality that Angelica was connected to Jefferson as well.
4 - If anything his overall military accomplishments and his role as Washington's right hand man is underplayed in reading Chernov. Certainly his overall battlefield experience prior to joining Washington't staff was down played to raise the power of his request for command. Hamilton would have had a decent military legacy without his role in the Battle of Yorktown... but that certainly sealed it for him. The relationship with Washington is also free of the realities of the muddle of history in the telling. Again it seems Miranda weaves a clear narrative out of multiple possible interpretations... but in places it presents a far clearer story than the historical evidence presents. Again in the vein of story telling no major flaws.
5 - Found it interesting that Miranda shied away from digging deeper into the shenanigans of Washington's cabinet going on between Jefferson and Hamilton. Those two rap battles of cabinet discourse could probably have been expanded into the whole play.
6 - The Reynolds affair timeline is definitely tidied up to make for easier story telling. I actually found it surprising how little it ultimately did deviate. Mostly he just simplified the story without getting much into the broader issue of James Reynolds and the accusations of improper speculation beyond a couple of verses here and there alluding the the charges Jefferson was really pursuing when he got surprised by the underlying reality of the affair as opposed to financial scandal he suspected. He also kind of sticks to the story of a more unwitting Maria Reynolds where in reality she and her Husband were likely a con artist pair who were attempting to blackmail Hamilton into abusing his powers as treasuring secretary for their benefit in addition to the extortion over the affair. Neither way of telling the story does a better job of explaining what the hell happened for Hamilton to drop his pants or why he didn't back away from it all sooner. Also... if anything the Whole Reynolds pamphlet section of the song underplays just how insane Hamilton's nuclear option response was to try and clear his name through a detailed confession of the details surrounding his affair.
7 - The play never says Phillip Hamilton was an only child but unless his siblings appear as part of the stage show it really does seem to be implied. I imagine to make the loss of him to a duel even more powerful. Reality was the Hamilton's had LOTS of kids, 8 in total.
And so far that is it. Haven't gotten to the second half. I am about at the end of Washington's second term in the book. But the general take away thus far has been that while Miranda's telling doesn't stand up as a rigorous historical re-telling, in terms of a play/movie/entertainment etc... goes it is damn near archival in nature in comparison to the usual lose affiliation with the truth other "inspired by true events" story telling you encounter.
Anyway. The music is good and incredibly catchy and solid throughout. It is definitely more powerful as a whole work than in any individual track. It is a powerful retelling of elements of the founding of the US and ticks off some very powerful elements in very succinct segments nutshelling a lot of very complex subjects that help build the bedrock of the nation. George Washington saying goodbye and the incredulity of European leadership at the American Experiment. Setting the tone of just how improbable our separation from England was. Explaining why we did not join with the rebellion in France despite their aide. The importance of establishing our financial system in a way that helped us maintain our independence. And many more. The songs are powerful mnemonical devices for remembering important historical issues wrapped up in an improbably true story of an amazing American.
If you hadn't guessed I think its worth a listen if you haven't done so yet. Here is hoping that the PBS taping of the show will make it out in its entirety at some point.
