HAMILTON: Hip Hop or not 5 Reasons Hamilton is a Must See Experience

Hamilton is the toast of New York. $28 million advanced sale makes it one of the most anticipated shows to hit Broadway. Not bad for a guy who the Treasury Department recently decided to remove from from the $10 bill, in spite of being the person responsible for our country's financial system. Here's what I can say for sure they were right. The revolution will not be televised. Because it's playing 8 shows a week on Broadway.

For folks like me, residents of Twitterico and a deep admirer of Lin-Manuel Miranda's work, Hamilton was an exercise of patience. Imagined as a concept album (Hamilton's Mixed Tape) and given a tease of what would become the opening number during a 2009 performance at the White House I have followed the journey along with thousands of Miranda's twitter followers as Hamilton grew into a fully realized musical that embraces the meaning and significance of words while conveying the visual melting pot we were taught to believe our nation was and continues to be. 

Hamilton will open later this week with the wind at its back. Success at the Public Theater and word of mouth have made this show the hottest ticket in town. Just ask the several hundred people lined up daily for a chance to win $10 tickets during the #Ham4Ham lottery. I've had the good fortune to see both the original staging downtown and the tweaked version that now resides at the Richard Rogers Theatre. 

One thing's certain, Hamilton steps into the limelight with a lot of hype. I thought I'd offer five reasons why this show exceeds expectation.

1) Is it a Hip Hop Musical or is it a musical with Hip Hop?

Hamilton's secret beauty is that it breaks down assumptions within the story and more importantly those we enter into the theater with as an audience. I've heard and read a lot about how this show changes the game, but to assume that it's because of the show's grounding in Hip Hop would be a mistake. Doing so would minimize the lyrical dexterity and historical accuracy that this show deploys from its opening snap. It changes our theater vernacular in a way the expands the audience's vantage point rather than carving out an entirely new road. That's its secret weapon. Manuel's music evolves with these characters. We are given a musical journey that possesses raw staccato passages to convey the urgency and hunger of the show's namesake. Alexander Hamilton arrived in the country a man of no importance. His drive, his words and his relentlessness drove him to center of the creation of a country ("I'm just like my country, I'm young scrappy and hungry"). A parallel rises from the writing of Federalist Papers and the platform Hip Hop gave a generation of voices that hadn't been heard. A tight, caustic and inciting rap battle is the pinnacle of choices to represent the wizardry and wordsmiths our founding fathers were. Hip Hop serves as the perfect vehicle for the story of our countries founding. It's a musical movement born out of the desire for freedom of expression. Yes, Hamilton is a musical that opens it's doors to a world that Broadway often doesn't speak about, but the brilliance is that Lin-Manuel Miranda has done so while holding on to his reverence for all that musical theater has created before. 

2) A World Where Women have Voice

The women. The Schuyler sisters to be specific didn't have to play a prominent role for this show to be successful. In fact they could have simply been pivot points that offered context for Hamilton's social climb and downfall. Instead, their stories, their point of view is vividly given life both in stellar performances from Renée Elise Goldsberry and Phillipa Soo and through music that envisions smart women who understood while they may have been powerless in the framing of government, they still possessed power that had purpose in driving the actions of our Founding Fathers. It matters for the story to give the audience a full picture of who Hamilton was and it matters for how we tell our history. For someone like me, who is raising a daughter, seeing and understanding the significance of the roles women have in our country since its inception is important. Who tells your story is present in every facet of this work. It is particularly stunning that a story about the actions of men is closed by a woman. The idea that as women, the Schuler sisters found a way to use (and deny) their voice is magnificently powerful. Their opening number invokes the feeling of a Destiny's Child anthem. But as the show and women evolve their complexity and search for a place in the world mirrors that of Hamilton's journey. Time and care are given to this story thread and what we get in return is a depth of understanding for the people behind our history and their humanity.

3) A. Ham v. A. Burr: When do we charge forward, when do we hold back and wait?

The show does a terrific job of navigating the complex lifelong intertwined relationship between Aaron Burr and Hamilton. How these gentleman from similar beginnings end up on opposite sides of a gun barrel is much richer than a rivalry gone too far. This show mines that gold to provide opposite sides of a coin. They embody two different tactics and paths for survival and success. Hamilton's brash, impatient action driven nature could easily be interpreted as impetuous even though he was intentional. His hunger drove him. Burr, as our narrator provides the exact opposite. He's a man lying in wait. As you watch the show, Burr often lurks in the shadows of a scene. He's observing, commenting, but never fully engaged, never committed. Miranda chooses a interesting moment to show how similar these men are in their core only to watch how their choices and methods set them on very different trajectories. Leslie Odom Jr. as Burr gives us a performance journey that possesses remorse and envy in places where he could have merely been foil for the stubbornness of Hamilton. By doing so, his pivotal number "The Room Where it Happens" becomes a showstopping moment. Not merely for the insanely large performance he gives, but for the significance of how much it reveals that Burr and Hamilton are not that much different in their desires. While the songs "My Shot" and "Wait for it" establish Hamiton and Burr's differing approaches, this final number by Burr stirs that desire and power are an elixir no man is immune to, even one as calculated as Burr. 

4) Team of Rivals, actually a team unrivaled.

Much has been said about Lin-Manuel Miranda and his creation of this show. To stop there would undercut the talent embedded in this production. The creative team led by director Thomas Kail alongside choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, set designer David Korins, costume designer Paul Tazewell, and musical director Alex Lacamoire make up a dream team for musical theater in the modern age. These gentlemen are the reason Hamilton is a Broadway show and not a concept recording called Hamiton's Mixed Tape. Kail's direction weaves together several points of view with seamless transitions providing for the passage of time, location and momentum for the characters. A great deal of this happens on the turntable and structural set Korins has the world inhabit. It's fitting that a story about the founding fathers is a framework and scaffolding. The visual works on multiple levels and keeps the focus centered on the language and verse rapidly coming our way. Blankenbuehler's choreography is storytelling at its finest whether it's animating a bullet travelling or using movement to covey urgency, fear and sadness. There is a breathtaking sequence towards the close of act 1 that if you stripped away the music and lyrics the story would remain perfectly in tact. These components speak to why this show is a masterpiece. Speaking of masterful. The puzzle that Lacamoire has put together as musical director is not to be understated. It would be easy to let the fact that the show is grounded in Hip Hop tell its musical tale. In reality Lacamoire has created a fabric of music that could have felt arbitrary, like selecting songs from a jukebox. Instead he has woven together a pattern that infuses the multiple genres that encompass Hamilton aligning the British Pop sounds to Rap as though they we always made to fade in and out of one another.  

5) This is OUR story. We are all immigrants

At the end of the day this is an immigrant story. A story that brings the internal motivation and optimistic urgency one feels to start a life to the forefront. This is true whether it's the life of a country, an individual or a legacy. Much has been said about the color blind casting of this show. It's significant to me not simply because it reflects our world today, but because it concretely says the stories of our founding father's belong to us all. 

I saw my first Broadway show when I was 9 years old. It was 10 more years before I saw characters who looked like me on a stage and reflected a world I knew. And not until I was 35 and watched Mandy Gonzalez sing about the challenges of living in two worlds did I see someone tell a story that reflected my personal journey. This is what makes Hamiton special. I sat in both the Public and Richard Rogers theaters as they filled with patrons, young, old, black, white, men, women.

All of us were taken into this immigrant story, because all of us can relate to wanting more than the hand life has dealt us. All of us can relate to the disappointment and betrayal that ambition can often cause. All of us can relate to the impulse to barrel ahead and the conflicting instinct that tells us to slow down and pick our moment more carefully. The success and failures that encompass Hamilton's life are the shared experience that this show conveys each of us at every performance. 

Who lives who dies who tells your story? 

At the close of In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's protagonist Usnavi declares: 

"Yeah I'm a streetlight chilling in the heat. 

I illuminate the stories of the people that I meet. 

Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet. 

But I know them all and that's what makes our life complete. 

If it's not me who keeps our memories, 

who's gonna keep the coffee sweet with secret recipes." 

What clearly elevates Hamilton is the truism that who tells the story is often as important as whose story is being told. That's the defining authentic voice Lin-Manuel Miranda gloriously brings to musical theater. He's a storyteller and the prism his light shines through is multifaceted representing the many intersections at which so many of us live our lives. Where Sondheim's music spoke honestly to the raw emotions of a generation, I believe Lin-Manuel Miranda speaks to the voices of the unseen. Those who often go unheard and have been declared 'other' as they travel through different facets of society. His words speak to the declaration of people simply looking for their place in the world. His, is a portrait of how and why life matters. 

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? As a fan of musical theater all my life Hamilton is a show for the ages and proves Lin-Manuel Miranda is a storyteller for a generation.  #YayHamlet

AUTOPSY REPORT: Why SMASH Failed

 

Two years ago when the buzz began about SMASH I could not have been more thrilled. A TV show that was going to take a look behind the curtain at the interworking of making a Broadway musical. Yes I had grave concerns about casting Katherine McPhee (which proved right). A musical about Marilyn Monroe was also subject matter that left me cold. However, this was a show about Broadway littered with folks from the Great White Way including a personal favorite of mine - Brian D'arcy James.

Then when it premiered there was this:

This closing number to episode one was glorious. It also established an expectation that this show was actually onto something. The core cast (save for McPhee) seemed primed to take us on a ride through the intricacies that go into getting a show to Broadway. Sadly by episode three the show quickly and horrifically squandered its opportunity (and audience) by never living up to its promise. Some have indicated the subject matter centering on Broadway didn't have an audience. I think the popularity of Glee (a grossly erratic show) says otherwise. So then the question is what happened? Here are my thoughts on where it went wrong.

Side Swiped by Side Plots

Almost immediately the show gave far too much weight and screen time to secondary plots that had no connection to the Marilyn musical they were creating. Julia’s character was the major source including an ill-conceived adoption plot, her troubled marriage and her annoying teenage-son. That along with random scenes with Karen's politico boyfriend and any scene that included Ellis the show’s episodes quickly became disjointed.

I believe those of us who tuned in wanted a show that looked at a process your average theater fan doesn’t know about. How does a musical get written, story-boarded and mapped out in a rehearsal studio? What does the casting process look like? How does the creative team come together and what is the power play that happens between the director, writers and producers? All of those aspects were there, but more often than not felt crowded out by the drama happening outside the studio, which was far less interesting.

Wasted Talent

As a long time Broadway junkie nothing about this show made me happier than the parade of talented stage actors who were a part of this show. Yes Bernadette Peters was a fun touch as Ivy's mother, but it was folks like Christian Borle and Brian D'Arcy James that made me most excited. How disappointing to find James in particular relegated to a peripheral role that didn't tap one of his greatest talents - his singing voice. It was criminal to watch. The same can be said for Raza Jaffrey saddled with the pathetic exercise of being Karen's lame boyfriend who’s most memorable action all season is a drunken one night stand with Ivy - yuck! By the time we hit season 2, we moved from wasted talent to stunt casting. There is a long list of Broadway/Theater vets who are immensely talented, all of whom I’ve had the pleasure to see perform elsewhere. All of them were unceremoniously underused and miscast. If it was a drinking game, I’d still be drunk from Sunday’s finale.

Characters that were a waste of time

Much has been written this season about the misguided plot turns, competing musicals and awful character embodied by Jeremy Jordan and the mishandling of Kyle’s character as a would be Jonathan Larson. While all true, I do not believe this is the reason the show failed. It was merely the final nail in a coffin filled with characters that served no purpose.

Season 1 gave us Will Chase, a waste of time that served only as part of Julia’s infidelity plot. Uma Thurman came in as the ‘star power’ when the show within the show sought out a 'stunt casting', which is not uncommon. It didn't work because SMASH built the first half of its season around the premise that the role of Marilyn was going to come down to the newcomer and perennial chorus girl. Regardless of Thurman’s abilities, it torpedoed everything that came before it and felt like a bait and switch to the audience. And then there was Ellis Boyd. Poor Jaime Cepero, the actor who had the great misfortune to play Ellis a unilaterally and immediately despised character who’s plotting and lurking was both absurd and pointless. That he got his comeuppance from the delectable Angelica Houston was little compensation for an entire season of stolen time from a character that added no value to a show that didn't have minutes to waste.

However the worst offense in casting was thinking that Jennifer Hudson’s brief story arc was a good plan this season. Her character was highly promoted and completely disconnected from all other aspects of the plot and purpose of the show. I understand that somewhere in a studio this must have made sense on paper. But it represented everything that SMASH did wrong – a storyline removed from the primary plot, poor casting and terrible writing. The one thing this arc did prove is how limited Hudson's acting ability is.

Season two also ushered in a second musical, “Hit List” and with it a parade of characters no one cared about. Kyle and Jimmy certainly the most prominent of the bunch. Frankly the second show premise might have worked if it wasn’t written so implausibly and with such a disagreeable character at its core.

Plausibility 

Speaking of implausible, that is what I think ultimately killed any hope of SMASH seeing a season 3. I was willing to give SMASH a second season to course correct because the pieces of season one had promise. I thought a new show runner, paring down the cast and resetting the trajectory could have worked. However, instead the show completely derailed when Karen quits Bombshell. The character of Karen was problematic from jump and Katherine McPhee's poor acting did not help her cause.  Karen was vulnerable and naïve but also ambitious. The idea that any actor, especially one who has not established a career would leave a lead role on a Broadway show to do a showcase, black box show at Fringe would NEVER HAPPEN. Period. Not in any way shape or form is this choice plausible. It was a preposterous plot shift to get us to dueling musicals. The shame of it is they could have accomplished this plot shift by simply having Karen fired from Bombshell. Having her quit betrayed the audience’s intelligence and it led to a series of ridiculous moments throughout season 2 that made the character of Karen look pious, delusional and ultimately unlikeable.

It makes me sad that SMASH died an early death. Not because it was a good show that didn’t get a shot at success, but because I love Broadway and live theater in general. I adore musicals and I think it is an art form that deserves exposure to a larger audience. At the end of the day this show became its own worst enemy. It had talent and topic that it didn’t know how to translate to a small screen as a continuing series. After sitting through the final two hours of this series on Sunday and given its chosen plot course this season some might call it a mercy killing.  I would call it a missed opportunity.