Hamilton

[seekingferret]

I was disappointed by "Hamilton", but I was expecting to be disappointed by "Hamilton", that's the whole reason I've been avoiding it for all these years. I guess I'm glad I got it out of the way. It has good pieces, certainly it has some great songs, but it never became bigger than its pieces, and I kept getting pulled out of it by the way the politics was being framed or simplified.

Again and again, politics gets squashed down in personality. I knew going in not to expect the ultra-wonky Enlightenment philosophy debate musical of my dreams, but it was still difficult to see how often Miranda would toss out a legitimate political question and then reframe it as being about personality conflicts between Hamilton and Jefferson or Hamilton and Burr. "My Shot" presents the revolution as being valuable because it was an opportunity for Hamilton and his drinking buddies to make a name for himself. Certainly Hamilton was ambitious, but because Miranda doesn't show any actual example of British oppression (and Hamilton's only acknowledgement of the tyranny in "My Shot" makes it sound like he's just objecting to being taxed too much), the ideas behind the revolution get shoved to the background. At our most generous, we could say that Miranda just assumes we already know them, but it's hard for me to be that generous. It's weird when Jefferson pops up at the start of Act II and suddenly North/South politics are at the heart of the show's conflict in a way they weren't in Act I.

"You'll Be Back" is a brilliant piece of political satire, but if you don't already believe George III and the British government have been tyrannical toward the colonies, it won't sell you on it. "Burn" is a devastating torch song, but it's not matched by the needed emotional narrative from Alexander, I feel like Miranda kinda punted there. And I liked "Wait for It" a lot more without context than with, because within the narrative it just becomes more self-justification for Burr's craven and cynical politics. It is upsettingly cynical the way "Smile more, talk less" is presented as one of the show's major messages.


I dunno. I have a lot of The Federalist Papers feels, I literally roleplayed as Alexander Hamilton as a teenager, I'm extremely invested in complicated narratives about the meaning of the birth of America. And for all the cleverness and beauty in "Hamilton" I didn't feel like it served the characters or the politics with the depth or complexity that I wanted it to.

Comments

[lannamichaels]

Yeah, Hamilton is really not deep on the politics at all. Plus it does the thing more times than I would like where someone would make a point in opposition to Hamilton's and instead of responding to the point, he'd insult them.

[seekingferret]

Yeah! When in reality Hamilton would BOTH brilliantly respond to the point AND insult them.

[lokifan]

"My Shot" presents the revolution as being valuable because it was an opportunity for Hamilton and his drinking buddies to make a name for himself.

I don't think that's true - I mean, it's very explicit about the role of personal ambition and that social mobility isn't gonna happen for them without war, but it also has "rise up, when you're living on your knees you rise up... when are these colonies gonna rise up?" "He ain't never gonna set his descendants free... I will lay down my life if it sets us free." I'd also say like, yeah, there isn't much detail on Britain's oppression, but you have lines about being free and the idea that "a tiny island across the sea" has no right to make rules, and explicit anti-monarchism from Hamilton and Lafayette. I think it's BOTH personal ambition and a genuine fight for freedom, I don't think it's presented as purely personal ambition. I mean after the win, the lines in Yorktown are about if white and black soldiers have true freedom, not about WOO PERSONAL SUCCESS.

It is upsettingly cynical the way "Smile more, talk less" is presented as one of the show's major messages.

I really disagree with this? This is presented as completely antithetical to Hamilton's approach, and more importantly Burr's approach is presented as negative - when he's using it to campaign politically, it's shown as being appealing for the wrong reasons.

[seekingferret]

I don't think that's true -

That's fair, I think both themes are there and it's reasonable to disagree about how the balance between the two ideas communicated the themes. For me, freedom is an amorphous enough concept, and my natural tendency against violent revolution is strong enough, that without a heavier emphasis on the harms caused by the monarchy earlier in the show, the song comes across too much as being about Hamilton's ambition, and even some of those lines about freedom start to seem pretextual.


really disagree with this? This is presented as completely antithetical to Hamilton's approach, and more importantly Burr's approach is presented as negative - when he's using it to campaign politically, it's shown as being appealing for the wrong reasons.

Immediately after the first deployment of "Talk less smile more" in "Aaron Burr, Sir", we get this lyric: "Fools who run their mouths off wind up dead", which is what happens to Hamilton! To me that weighs on the scales a lot. Throughout the play Hamilton makes political mistakes and after each one, the talk less, smile more theme comes back. And even something like "How can you write like you're running out of time", which starts out as an expression of astonishment and admiration, in its final runnings has turned into a lament about Hamilton's inability to restrain himself from expressing his true feelings. The show admires Hamilton more than Burr, but to me it come out on the side that Burr is more right than Hamilton about how to govern.