'Hamilton'

And lo, on this July 4th Weekend, we finally all got to be in the room where it happened.

I refer, of course, to a filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation Hamilton, which hit the streaming service Disney+ over the holiday weekend, and suddenly brought down the price of seeing the original cast perform on stage from thousands of dollars plus a time machine to a few bucks a month.

If you’re anything like me - a history buff with small kids and little disposable income since the middle of the decade - it was an excruciating, FOMO-filled wait, but one well worth it. Disney+: it’s not just for the kids or the kid inside you.

Does Hamilton need any introduction? Probably not. But, just on the off chance you know Lin-Manuel Miranda as the that-one-song-in-Moana guy or the answer-to-Dick-van-Dyke Mary Poppins Returns guy, here goes. Miranda’s mold-breaking show tells the story of the oft-forgotten “10-dollar founding father” Alexander Hamilton, using a blend of hip hop, jazz, and R&B to make the case that he has a rightful place alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and all the rest of his famous contemporaries.

Miranda is the singular force behind the show. He wrote the script, lyrics, and music - a staggering achievement that, when you see it all come together is liable to leave you muttering things about “the term genius being thrown around too loosely these days, but …”

Revolutionary as raps about and by the founding fathers are, so too are the people who deliver them. This is a multi-cultural, mostly non-white cast telling a variation of America’s origin story. It is something to behold - all of it. Its cumulative power translates just fine in your living room, though I am sure it’s somewhat more muted than actually having taken it in live.

The democratization of Hamilton for anyone with a steady Internet connection certainly comes at an interesting moment. My guess is that many Americans spent the long weekend thinking more about the meaning of the holiday they were celebrating than in past years. We are enduring a national humiliation, unable to stem the tide of rising coronavirus infections despite our vast resources. And we are also going through yet another racial reckoning, this one sparked by the brutal killing of George Floyd and ensuing protests, but also morphing in to another front of the culture war about how, if at all, we should celebrate our founding and who should be considered a national hero. In some corners, there is a Hamilton backlash brewing for how the show handles slavery. In others, there is more of a tempered critical reconsideration. The world has, after all, been turned upside down since Hamilton first became a sensation.

Past is prologue, as they say, and I can understand a lingering emptiness in the clear joy and optimism of this show given where we sit as a country now. It is just not a sentiment I share. Quite to the contrary, I found Hamilton to be as well equipped for this moment as it is entertaining and template-shattering.

Miranda, a native New Yorker with Puerto Rican parents, seems to have found power in the story of our founding. He has turned it in to a permanent pop culture touchstone, and done it with a cast that, with both its appearance and talents, subverts all expectations. “Every act is an act of creation,” Miranda, who plays the titular role, sings in “My Shot”, a pulsing, upbeat tune that is one of the most memorable in a veritable sea of them. Indeed it is, and Hamilton, in its own small way, seems to extend the vision of the founding a little bit further.

That is not to say that it is pollyannaish. Hamilton’s personal story has a tragic end as does that of his son Philip (Anthony Ramos). Many of the other main characters, from Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) to his wife Eliza (Philippa Soo) to her sister Angelica (Renee Elise Goldberry), carry a profound sadness. If you know your founding history, and know that Hamilton is the protagonist, then it might not be surprising that his principal rivals Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and James Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan) don’t come off well. For as much possibility as Hamilton’s story offers, there is also considerable acknowledgement that he was deeply flawed as well.

America itself is full of those two things - possibility and deeply ingrained flaws. There is tragedy and hypocrisy and contradiction. And there is resiliency. Alexander Hamilton’s story is one of bold vision and profound shortcomings. He left an indelible mark, but, had he been able to get out of his own way, may have been able to give so much more. For me at least, that resonates loud as ever.