“It was a Broadway revolution” 20/03/2021

Journalism piece | Hamilton the musical

Hamilton is an extraordinary play that emerged into the limelight in 2015 and arrived on the west end in winter 2017, and since then has took on the theatre industry by storm. It is based on an amazing founding father of America called Alexandra Hamilton. Alexandra created prosperity and played a significant part in the American revolution in the late 1700s. The play talks about his impact on society and the road he had to take to get there... it is a moving and enchanting piece of theatre that will take your emotions on a rollercoaster. Not only does this play teach you about an amazing part of history that is usually forgotten, it teaches you about family, love and friendship. The title Hamilton has obviously come from our main protagonist Alexandra Hamilton, and the inspiration for the piece was a biography written by Ron Chernow called ‘Alexandra Hamilton’. This later lead to the inspiration Lin-Manuel Miranda to propose the idea for Hamilton the musical, he also wrote songs and scripts for the piece, and it was then sold to Disney to be created into a hit Broadway show...

The first shows in New York were directed by Alex Lacamoirewho did an amazing job and created Miranda’s idea into a reality, so it's safe to say it wasn’t just a one-man job!

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I was extremely moved by this performance in many ways, it made me laugh, dance and sing along, it inspired me to maybe include certain techniques in my future ideas, educated me on topics I would never have usually been interested in, allowed me to connect with the characters for example empathise, justify and even take sides with them, and finally, towards the end I may or may not have even cried a little, But Despite the tears I really enjoyed Hamilton. I’m not going to lie it was a little different than other musicals I had seen, but I loved the character and individuality it had, compared to other plays. However, Did I prefer it against something contemporary like wicked or Six? No, but I suppose it would be hard finding something that beats wicked. However, despite that I would watch it again and hasn’t stopped me listening to the soundtrack on repeat.

One thing I think was also an amazing advantage for this play was you can learn so much for it!! let’s just say I now know who Alexandra Hamilton is and practically his life story...but I also learnt about politics, alliances and more of an understanding of culture and opinions back then, and of course, about the main topic the American revelation. In my opinion this extortionary play also, had a lot to say, and not even just about politics and historical knowledge, I think it also shared an allegory about family, business, love and friendship... It showed us significantly a bond between a farther and son that was interrupted by lack of vision on reality, and how business can fog up that vision, which can hide the important things such as family, love and friendship. Which could now even be compared to modern society, which gave it an advantage when trying to connect with an audience. •••Like I mentioned before Hamilton is all about the American revelation and the impact of Sir Alexandra Hamilton, who was a hero who changed America for the good, but for some reason was later forgotten and only known by a few... Alexandra Hamilton was the American founding farther who lead America onto a great path of wealth, trade and respect. It is said that the stimulus and inspiration for Miranda, which lead him to write this extortionary play, was the 2004 biography ‘Alexandra Hamilton’ written by Ron Chernow.

However, if we were going to talk about mood and themes, there were themes of love, family, politics and hatred throughout. For example, love was shown in a vicious triangle that contains Hamilton, Eliza and Angelica as we find out in the song ‘satisfied’ after the secrete that Alexandra and angelica had a moment during that exact song, that Eliza, who later becomes Hamiltons wife, will never know. we later see scenes where the two secrete lovers, make nervous and regretful eye contact and even write letters to each other, we know about they're love throughout; however, it frustrates the audience as Eliza never finds out, and their connection is never verbally spoke about again... Family is shown through Alexandra's family Eliza (his wife) and especially his bond with his son Philip, who later dies in a Duel and family and love is truly shown between Eliza and Hamilton as they morn their sons' loss together. Friendship is shown significantly in the second half through betrayal of friendship through Alexandra Hamilton and his friends who he met in the first half, these were Aaron Burr, who later kills him and Marquis de Lafayette, who later apposes against him, which you could never of imagined after the songs ‘ the story of tonight’ which is when they are talking about their future together, and ‘Aaron burr sir’ which is when we see the friendship between Hamilton and Aaron burr first, and also we meet Hamiltons significant friends mulligans and marquis. We quite quickly learn that Hamilton and Aaron burr are witty enemies and are competing for the same things throughout the production. And for mood I would say humorous, tear jerking and uplifting.

As for the ending... Not at all was it predictable. I was left unable to shut my mouth in shock by the end... Aaron burr!! No, no one expected him to have done it. Also, I never expected Eliza to be the to carry on his legacy, after Alexandra made a fool out of her, after the affair and the lies but she did him proud and gave us, the audience, a sense of fulfilment by the end. in the end, it was a happy ending. Spoiler alert but I also never expected Alexandra to die, or once the duel was commencing for Burr to shoot...

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The acting was phenomenal, they seemed ‘real’ and they were correctly based off America in the late 1700s however, it was probably slightly exaggerated and inaccurate, as we don't own all the knowledge from our past. The navel inspired uniforms also fitted to the theme and atmosphere, however, I did think the female uniforms were a little stereotypical, but it doesn’t impact the performance in anyway, in fairness it was probably for practicality and budget, rather than false knowledge. The characters were also as ‘real’ as they could have been, the actors embodied the characters well and it was believable and really got you to connect with them. It was a very complex set of characters in Hamilton, as you find out, everyone has a backstory, personality, opinion and clever input in some way that works with the plot. One character that I do think was exaggerated due to comedic purposes was king George the 3rd but it paid off and added an amazing character and twist to the story, it worked in the performance. If I could pick three characters that stood out to me the most during the play, it would have to be Aaron burr, Alexandra himself and Eliza. But the main character for me was Aaron burr, as you saw him change dramatically throughout each scene all because of the events that were happening and the direct effect it had on him, that caused the future change we later see. He had been through a lot and also faced a lot in the play, I felt for him as he was always pushed to the background behind Alexandra when they were both fighting for what they believed, they were both good men yet, Aaron burr was pushed out due to Alexandra's shining success, Burr lost everything due to Hamilton, and nobody looked out for him... he also faces up to his mistakes at the beginning, which does foreshadow what happens at the end, and personally I can understand his point of view and also even justify him for shooting Alexandra, no matter how wrong it was. The first thing that proves this is when burr turned up to show his enthusiasm and dedication to George Washington, but he dismisses him harshly and invites Alexandra in for the promotion instead, it also happens when burr runs against Alexandra, and he gets locked out of the room during a very important meeting during ‘the room where it happens'. Every story has a hero and villain but in Hamilton I wouldn’t say there was a clear hero and villain in this story, if it were up to me, I would say the cliché of they were all as bad as each other... however you would definitely say Hamilton was the protagonist throughout even though burr practically narrated the play. Yes, burr did shoot him but was he really the bad guy for pulling the trigger? in my opinion they were all their own bad guys. Hamilton led to his own downfall and so did every other character they all lied, did something wrong or did someone else wrong... except Eliza... if there were any hero or even guardian angel in this story, she would be it.

One thing I will mention about the acting is sometimes the stances looked natural sometimes they didn’t. However, that was for a reason due to freeze frames, which there were a lot of, they just always had a purpose to them... overall the acting was amazing, I noticed no flaws or ‘bad’ acting they all were professional and were very committed to their roles. One moment where I thought the acting was exceptional was during the song ‘it’s quiet uptown’ between Eliza and Alexandra after their son Philip had died, it stood out as it wasn’t over exaggerated, it wasn’t too much, it was subtle but very moving, and for them to not even do or almost say anything and make a whole audience empathise and feel what they were feeling takes talent!

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Finally, something I am extremely excited to talk about was the set and costumes!!! Wow Wow Wow!!! The costumes were very appropriate and enhanced the performance completely, it evidently made the atmosphere so much more realistic and allowed the performance to create more of a long-lasting impact on its audience. The costumes are as correct as they could have been from the 1700s as they are based off historical knowledge including the biography ‘Alexandra Hamilton’ which I mentioned before. I loved the colours of the costumes and how the colours, Especially the males, reflected events in the story, for example the costumes were dark during tense moments and when Hamilton was rising, he was in light clothing. This worked extremely well with the mood and the lighting. Personally, I would maybe suggest more costume changes to infer significant changes in the story, but I wouldn’t really change anything about the costumes themselves. The set was also another phenomenal feature of this play it added so much culture, reality, atmosphere, contrast and just elevated the whole performance so much, it enhances choreography, monologues, lighting and staging so much more!!!!! One thing I thought was incredibly cleaver was how they used lighting to blackout unwanted set, for example when Alexandra was sitting at his desk, to create the spacious atmosphere of his office, the street like set was blocked out to maintain focus on the main space, and in my opinion the person who decided to do that instead of a complete set change deserves an Oscar in itself, it was an amazing decision and also made sure there wasn’t any distraction from the acting and story. Despite the significance the set has on a performance, it was much more effective in this situation to minimalize set changes.

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To summarise this incredibly long review Hamilton was an amazing show that I'm sure will stick around for a while yet. I would 100% recommend this play, especially to my age group as I think it changes a huge stereotype of musical theatre. I know allot of people my age that hate musical theatre, they think its cheesy, outdated and boring... however, Hamilton contains a large range of hip-hop and rap in their aural setting and a lot of hip-hop and breakdance infused musical theatre

choreography, which I think might engage the teens/ younger generation more. So, who knows Hamilton could have been the show that took on its own revolution not only history but Broadway and who knows what it could inspire next for the glittering world of theatre....

WRITTEN BY JESSICA-CHLOE WATSON