"Hamilton's" Place in Musical History

For my last blog, I want to go kinda meta with my commentary. Since so much of Hamilton is about legacies, I thought it'd be interesting to talk about what the legacy of Hamilton itself will be.

Hamilton arrived at an interesting place in musical history. It follows many shows such as Avenue Q, Spring Awakening, Next to Normal, American Idiot, and Miranda's own In the Heights, which, like Hamilton, do interesting and new things with the format of the musical, which usually manifested itself in new and inspired choices in music and choreography. But none of these musicals gained much significant traction in popularity outside of the Broadway community, and were certainly not as popular as more traditional musicals. Hamilton, however, is another story; it's reached such a height of popularity and has entered the popular consciousness to a point almost unlike any other musical in the history of our culture (has the writer and star of a musical ever hosted SNL before?). Sure, it might not be as big a household name as other classics like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Beauty and the Beast, or even more modern shows like Wicked, but those shows have some years under their belt.

Hamilton's place in modern pop culture is fascinating to examine, and I really think it's going to be looked back on as a turning point for the modern musical. While I doubt there will be another Hamilton in terms of pop culture presence and significance, I'm sure that there will be plenty more that are just as daring, original, and revolutionary (no pun intended). If Lin-Manuel Miranda continues writing at the level he currently is, I bet his name will be remembered alongside names like Sondheim, Rogers & Hammerstein, or Gershwin.

King George's Role in "Hamilton"

A few blog posts ago, I wrote about the cut John Adams rap, and why Lin-Manuel Miranda chose to remove it from the show. The conclusion that I came to was that it was cut for the sake of perspicuity; the rap is ultimately redundant and takes up unnecessary stage time, as well as being targeted toward a character that never actually appears in person on stage throughout the entire show.

But upon further thought, I realized that this logic completely falls apart when you examine another aspect of the show- that of King George III. He has three songs to himself, all of which are solo numbers, and he never interacts with another character outside of that- hell, he's never even featured on stage outside of his ballads. With the Adams rap, it was half of one song ("The Adams Administration") that was cut, but in this instance, it's three full songs that are fairly inconsequential in the scheme of things- not only that, but really King George's entire character could be cut from the show and none of the other characters would really be affected. The only character that is stated to have interaction with George is John Adams, who, as you'll recall, isn't actually in the show.

But I think that there's a fundamental difference between George's songs and the Adams rap. No other songs in the show are anything like the Brit-pop pseudo-love ballads that the monarch spouts every so often during relevant events in the chronology of the show. They are both lyrically and musically different from everything else in the show, and cutting it denies the show the variety that these songs very effectively inspire.

"The World Turned Upside Down" and Revisionist History

In "Yorktown," there's a lyric towards the end of the song as the Americans win the Battle of Yorktown- and in effect, the Revolutionary War- which reads, "And as our fallen foes retreat, I hear the drinking song they're singing..." followed by the repeated lyrics "The world turned upside down." This, and the lyrics that proceed it, are lifted from Chernow's biography upon which the show was based. However, there's no actual direct record of the British troops singing this song, but Lin-Manuel Miranda incorporates it as a major theme of this piece- it's even in the parenthetical of the song title.

This points toward a very interesting larger trend in the show, a trend of changing historical facts in the show. Maybe my title decrying the musical as a revisionist history was a bit extreme, but the point still remains. Many of the historical details in the show are either glossed over or completely changed. For instance, Philip Schuyler had many more children besides the three sisters we meet in the show, including several older sons. This fundamentally changes Angelica's motivation upon meeting Hamilton. She also was married when they met in real life, another huge change in the dynamic. Another lesser example was the fact that Alexander and Eliza had seven other children that (if I recall) aren't even mentioned, and definitely don't feature as strongly into the story as Philip.

These types of changes are not unique to Hamilton, however. Many historical films, such as Braveheart, Amadeus, Marie Antoinette, and The Imitation Game take massive liberties with telling true historical events. Many of these events fundamentally change the courses of the stories they're telling, which, initially, seems pretty dishonest.

But I think it's important to allow artists to take some creative liberties with historical events. All of the films I listed above received high praise, so it isn't like changing the events makes the films worse- if anything, the events are being changed to make the narrative better. The alterations that Miranda made to Hamilton didn't harm the narrative, they only made the story more focused and the character arcs more impactful. Historical revisionism is important, even if it initially seems misguided.

The Incredible Luck of PBS' "Hamilton" Documentary

A few weeks ago, PBS aired a documentary entitled Hamilton's America that chronicled the writing, production, and success of Hamilton, through the eyes of a variety of individuals including Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, various members of the cast, and a number of other significant public figures- including President Obama himself.

What I find really interesting about this documentary is the fact that they started filming it a number of months before it first debuted off-Broadway at the Public Theatre. Yes, Miranda and his work was well-known at that point within the Broadway community after his success with In the Heights, but there is no way that PBS knew how insanely popular Hamilton would go on to become. So what inspired them to actually go through with making this documentary, instead of shifting their focus elsewhere to something that was a more guaranteed hit?

I think the largest factor by far was the buzz around the show even before it had finished being written. A variety of performers and musicians had talked to Miranda about his project, and they all had a very similar response- skeptical at first, but eventually very impressed and huge fans. Miranda first performed one of the songs, the opening number, at a poetry night being held at the White House, and while many initially thought it was a joke, everyone- including the President and First Lady- recognized Lin's incredible ability and songwriting prowess.

Another factor- and one that is more than a little connected to the last one- is Miranda's established ability. As I mentioned, Miranda was already fairly well-known within the Broadway community after his first show, the aforementioned In the Heights, won four Emmys, so any buzz around a new project from him was bound to be huge. There's also his work with the rap improv group Freestyle Love Supreme and on various TV shows, so the guy was an established talent.

But the last factor, and I think probably the biggest one, is luck. "Hip-hop American history musical" was bound to be very original and probably pretty good, especially coming from the creative team it had, but they really had no way of knowing it was going to be such a smash hit. So hey, congrats to PBS for getting as lucky as they did.

(By the way, if you haven't seen it you should watch it ASAP. It's on PBS' Facebook page and website for free, it's pretty great.)