Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton: Play Review
In "Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton Play Review Essay" we will analyze the play and the main themes. Hamilton: The Musical was created by Lin-Manuel Miranda and first premiered on January 20th, 2015 at The Public Theater in New York City. Hamilton is about the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton told through singing and rapping. Hamilton rose to success not too long after the musical came out. Hamilton was nominated for 16 Tony nominations, and won 11 of them. Hamilton also won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama, which is quite rare to receive. Hamilton is so popular, especially among young adults because it isn’t some boring musical that students are forced to watch for education.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has added the drama and hard trials of Alexander Hamilton’s lives nobody would have every paid any attention to in a textbook or a history lesson. This musical gets people to think about olden times, racial backgrounds using theater which is rare for a musical. Hamilton is different from other musicals/ history musicals at least, because of the representation Lin-Manuel has chosen. In times of Alexander Hamilton’s life, everybody in his real life were not African American, or Asian. In the play Hamilton, Lin-Manuel chose people of color and diverse race to play characters such as Aaron Burr, George Washington and many more. Lin-Manuel Miranda was asked about why he chose more people of color and different backgrounds rather than white people to play his characters. Lin-Manuel said he did this to help increase representation in the entertainment industry, but that was not the main reason. He also wanted the characters in the musical to correlate with the soundtrack that was created because its mostly hip-hop and rap, and white people didn’t create hip hop and rap.
People in 2018 love to see representation it can remind them of themselves. It isn’t fair still in this day-in-age not everybody is looked at as beautiful or capable, and it doesn’t help when a company or entertainment services only shows white people. Racism and hate in America won’t be looked at as wrong if non white people aren’t given representation in any form. That is teaching people, and the young adults/children in the world that people of ethnic backgrounds don’t need a voice or to be equal as us. Lin-Manuel’s reasoning behind this is one of the reasons why Hamilton is a masterpiece of our time. The story of Hamilton is fascinating and is well coordinated so people are in love with this play. The show has humor, whit, charm, and devastation. People prefer Hamilton because it gets you invested in the story with the heart tearing story of Hamilton. Alexander was sick as a young boy and got well but striking his mother dead, leaving him to fend for himself. He then decided he wanted to create something out of his poor life, so he used confidence to charm his way into success.
The love triangle between Eliza, Angelica and he caused fans to be distraught. People would have never paid attention to this part of history if it weren’t for how Lin-Manuel made it so interesting. The music in this Broadway production is what people really enjoyed. Even never having seen the play before, people listen to this music because of how it sounds like our daily music, maybe even better. Lin-Manuel told this story through hip hop and rap even though the events in the play take place years ago. The music is perfectly catchy, and the vocals are mesmerizing.
The Hamilton musical had such good music in it, “The Hamilton Mixtape” was created using the best songs from the original Hamilton album, and re-sung by celebrities. Hamilton is used in history classes today to help break down the life of Alexander Hamilton in better and more relatable ways. Hamilton: the musical, also uses a great representation of cultural backgrounds and representation of color, which is important in 2018 as many musicals, shows, and movies lack that.
The story of Hamilton is told in such a way the viewer cannot look away in fear of missing something, and the music will be listened to all around the world even if it had nothing to do with the play, its catchiness and perfectly pieced together vocals captivate the world. Hamilton is a masterpiece of our time and will be talked about for decades after this lifetime.
