How do you take a 250-year-old story from American history — centering on dead white men — and make it universally relevant today?
Set it to a hip-hop music on a New York stage with a biracial cast.
That’s what Lin-Manuel Miranda did with his production of “Hamilton,” the groundbreaking musical now in its final month at The Public Theater and headed to Broadway in July. And it worked spectacularly.
OK, I was bound to love this show. Alexander Hamilton, after all, was born in the West Indies island of Nevis, and grew up in St. Croix before coming to New York. A writer, he later founded the New York Post. Born out of wedlock to a young woman, his own industriousness led him to be George Washington’s right hand and the nation’s first treasury secretary.
Your humble columnist was born on the West Indies island of Trinidad, eventually landed in New York as well and now writes for The Post. As for my parentage, well, as an African-American who’s worked for the Republican Party, my, ahem, legitimacy has been called into question more than once. The coincidences continue: My mother currently lives in St. Croix, while I reside in Washington Heights — not far from the upper Manhattan neighborhood where Hamilton built his estate. (No, I’m not planning to visit Weehawken, NJ, any time soon.)
Hamilton speaks to my life experience — but certainly to that of other New Yorkers, and Americans, as well.
At a White House poetry reading six years ago, for example, Miranda offered a taste of what would become his musical based on Hamilton’s life: “The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father/ got a lot farther by working a lot harder/ by being a lot smarter/ by being a self-starter.”
The musical itself, of course, goes beyond one person’s story, taking in the city’s prominence in the nation’s founding. Declaring himself “just like my country/ young, scrappy and hungry,” the young Hamilton vows, “I’m not going to throw away my shot.” All of which adds to its current-day urban relevance.
For some, the most unnerving part of this production won’t be the modern hip-hop music, but its trans-racial casting. Given our identity-obsessed modern era, this aspect of the show is guaranteed to infuriate historians. As everyone knows, the Founding Fathers were all white, like it or not. The Declaration and Constitution were written by white men — “dead white men” in the classic formulation.
What does it add to stage a historically based production with a “black” James Madison or a “biracial” Thomas Jefferson (never mind the wink at Jefferson’s illicit relationship with slave Sally Hemings).
But the music — its super songs and upbeat feel — and the modern-day wit (Hamilton’s entourage celebrates in a pub with hearty cries of “Showtime!” which invite knowing chuckles from subway riders of today) might make you think the tough issues of that era are treated lightly.
Wrong. Slavery, brutality and inequality are key themes, and that’s only reinforced by the casting.
Yes, Aaron Burr, the villain of the show, is played by a black actor (the remarkable Leslie Odom Jr.). But that’s not a racial slight. In one of the more passionate songs, “The Room Where It Happens,” Burr speaks for many, singing of the frustration of being left on the outside, looking in on the pivotal secret meeting between Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison. (Today’s New Yorkers might wonder if this is where Albany got the idea for its infamous “three-men-in-a-room” deal-cutting.)
Nor is the issue of slavery ducked. For instance, Hamilton’s best friend, John Laurens, is the son of a slave owner, but he’s opposed to the practice and vows to lead a regiment of slaves in the war (tragically, he’s killed in combat before realizing his dream). And in a debate between Hamilton and Jefferson over war debts (staged as a freestyle-rap battle), Hamilton mocks Jefferson’s claims of a hard-working South, pointing to Jefferson’s true workers.
To be sure, “Hamilton” does make race largely a backdrop to a bigger story. But this structure, the music and the biracial casting combine to open a window into the Founding through which all of America’s children, all of her ethnicities, can relate and absorb its profound lessons.
In essence, the show is Miranda’s response to Jesse Jackson’s chant at Stanford a quarter-century ago: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go.” His charge? That ideas of the past — including those of America’s founding — have little to teach today’s youth.
Miranda’s answer? If we take a close, new look, we’ll find plenty we can learn from the Founders — and see ourselves within them, too.