{"id":106670,"date":"2015-09-15T06:51:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T10:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=106670"},"modified":"2015-11-13T09:40:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T14:40:25","slug":"and-the-world-is-gonna-know-your-name-whats-your-name-man-alexander-hamilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=106670","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;And the World Is Gonna Know Your Name. What&#8217;s Your Name, Man? Alexander Hamilton.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WNFf7nMIGnE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nThis is <i>Hamilton<\/i> creator Lin-Manuel Miranda performing at the White House Spoken Word Jam in 2009. He was hard at work on his &#8220;concept hip-hop album&#8221; about a man he says &#8220;embodies hip-hop&#8221; &#8230; Alexander Hamilton. He performs the first song, an Eminem-inspired introductory narrative (I hear a lot of &#8220;Lose Yourself&#8221; in there), called &#8220;Alexander Hamilton.&#8221; This was in 2009 which just goes to show you how long it takes to bring a show to production time.<\/p>\n<p><i>Hamilton<\/i> was one of the most incredible and <em>revolutionary<\/em> shows I have ever seen, in this oh-so-conservative theatre town. A hip-hop musical. Rap on a Broadway stage. Angry rap too. N.W.A.-sounding rap. The Battle of Yorktown sung in rap? The writing of the freakin&#8217; Federalist Papers as a goosebump-inducing rap production number? Or the secret meeting between Hamilton\/Jefferson\/Madison where they carved out a compromise involving the placement of the Capitol and Hamilton&#8217;s financial system &#8211; a gigantic thrilling production number? Debates in the cabinet between Jefferson and Hamilton conceived as a &#8220;rap battle&#8221; a la <em>8 Mile<\/em>? Have I died and gone to heaven? The production has an extraordinarily diverse cast (the most diverse I&#8217;ve seen since <i>Rent<\/i>). The Schuyler sisters, for example, were three different races. Yes! This is what college productions look like, community theatre productions: why is Broadway so far behind? The show is not only ferociously educational but <i>hilarious<\/i>, in its lyrics and in some of its conceptions of characters: Thomas Jefferson was reminiscent of Prince, with his big hair and head-to-toe purple velvet suit, as well as a lackadaisical rock-star &#8220;I don&#8217;t give a fuck&#8221; attitude &#8211; so perfect! STILL LAUGHING. Or King George III: The audience around me was literally rocking back and forth laughing: he had only three numbers but he brought the house down and by the third time he appeared, people started laughing before he had even DONE anything. (Side note: unlike most Broadway shows, this one had a diverse audience as well.)<\/p>\n<p>Ron Chernow, when he came to the first rehearsal, describes his feelings when he saw this first number (which is a big group number in the production). Chernow said in re: Miranda&#8217;s lyrics, &#8220;He got the first 40 pages of my book &#8211; every bit of it &#8211; into one song.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Those of you who have read me for a long time know my feelings on Alexander Hamilton. I know his story backwards and forwards. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=105073\" target=\"_blank\">He was a complex, fascinating figure.<\/a> Self-destructive. Driven. Brilliant. I felt vindicated (almost personally) by Ron Chernow&#8217;s book. But it&#8217;s one of those lonely obsessions. It&#8217;s not like being obsessed with, say, George Clooney or One Direction where you would have lots of company. Hamilton maniacs are a small hearty group. We also are in the minority &#8211; in certain circles, anyway &#8211; in that we don&#8217;t just go around dismissing all those guys because they were &#8220;dead white males.&#8221; Hamilton was a penniless immigrant (one of the lines in the show: &#8220;Immigrants get shit done&#8221; elicited ROARS from the audience), illegitimate birth, abandoned by his father, he had NOTHING (except for his extraordinary mind), and he rose to the heights of power in his new land. You would think these people would find him an inspiring figure on that fact alone, right? He was an abolitionist. He saw farther than the &#8220;other guys&#8221; because he was not tied to one region. He saw the future. He saw the disappearance of Land as the currency of the realm, and the rise of industry\/cities\/factories. He had the immigrant&#8217;s perspective on freedom\/opportunies\/sky&#8217;s-the-limit. Nobody handed him <i>anything<\/i>. We Hamilton fans did not cheer with excitement when we heard Hamilton was getting bumped off the tenner for a woman. We were pissed. But what do non-Hamilton-fans and non-history-buffs people know about him? (If they haven&#8217;t read Chernow&#8217;s book, I mean.) That he&#8217;s on the 10 dollar bill and that he died in a duel. Drunk History <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6V_DsL1x1uY\" target=\"_blank\">did an Alexander Hamilton episode<\/a> (it was their first episode), and Michael Cera played Hamilton and I was so excited. Not just to see their ridiculous re-enaction (&#8220;Alexander Hamilton shot &#8230;&#8230;.. Alexander Hamilton &#8230;&#8221;) but that the drunk guy telling the story was a fellow Hamilton Traveler.  Part of the tribe.<\/p>\n<p>SO. To then sit in the Richard Rodgers theatre, and the lights went down, and the first number began, and people circled the stage, moving in and out, singing quietly, &#8220;Alexander Hamilton &#8230; his name is Alexander Hamilton &#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was like stepping into an alternate universe where everybody understands, where everybody &#8220;knows his name.&#8221; I almost couldn&#8217;t believe it was happening.<\/p>\n<p>The show lionizes him, yes. And rightly so, in my opinion. His reputation was in the hands of his enemies for 200 years. Put him back in the pantheon where he belongs. The production is an act of powerful redress. But it does not shy away from his flaws, his impulsiveness, his almost supernatural ability to make enemies, his constitutional inability to &#8220;play well with others.&#8221; The same with Aaron Burr. As he admits sadly (he narrates the whole production) &#8220;I&#8217;m the villain of your stories &#8230;&#8221; but it contextualizes Burr, it contextualizes the relationship between these two men, their similarities, their differences, how the duel seemed to be a date they had from the very beginning.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes if you know a subject really well, you feel a sense of ownership over it. And so there&#8217;s anxiety about any portrayal of said subject. This leads to folks like NASA scientists writing &#8220;10 Things <i>Gravity<\/i> Gets Wrong About Gravity and Space&#8221; kind of articles. It&#8217;s annoying, perhaps, but I get it. I felt a little bit of that anxiety going in (although every article I&#8217;ve read with Miranda has gotten me more and more excited: the enthusiasm, the hero-worship type attitude that Hamilton often inspires). But still, I felt, right before the lights went down: &#8220;Will this be okay? Will the production understand him?&#8221; (Yes. I need to let it go. But again, this happens when you know a subject well!)<\/p>\n<p>But my anxiety vanished within the first couple of lines of the first song. <\/p>\n<p>Does the production understand?? Oh my GOD yes. Yes it does.<\/p>\n<p>And you can FEEL that in this first number.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen a lot of Broadway shows. I have never &#8211; and I mean never &#8211; seen or heard or participated in an ovation like the one <i>Hamilton<\/i> received. It was a thunderous ROAR. That got louder &#8230; and louder &#8230; and louder &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You could have heard it from across the Hudson.  You know. Where the duel took place in 1804, the duel where Hamilton shot into the air, and Burr shot straight ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o.jpg\" alt=\"2194595599_92d92f53f1_o\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-106688\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o-100x75.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2194595599_92d92f53f1_o-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>Picture I took a couple years back (before the Freedom Tower rose downtown) of Alexander Hamilton&#8217;s bust, presiding over the spot down below where they believe the duel took place. It&#8217;s right down the street from me. Which makes sense, right? I swear I didn&#8217;t plan it that way.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda performing at the White House Spoken Word Jam in 2009. He was hard at work on his &#8220;concept hip-hop album&#8221; about a man he says &#8220;embodies hip-hop&#8221; &#8230; Alexander Hamilton. He performs the first &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=106670\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,17,16],"tags":[33,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106670"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106722,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106670\/revisions\/106722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}