Hamilton is a musical about the life of the American founding father Alexander Hamilton written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. This musical about the first secretary of treasury of the United states has made history and broken records in a way most theater enthusiasts’ thought would never happen, due to Hamilton being a hip-hop musical about the founding fathers. This musical has been revolutionary not only due to the fact that it is about the American revolution but due to the new air it brought to Broadway. Hamilton gave a new life to American theater do to its plot and innovations in lyrical and musical intricacies. This musical powerhouse plays on your heart string and leaves you asking yourself “Why am I crying about the guy in the ten-dollar bill?”
Lin-Manuel Mirada made the founding fathers relatable in this musical, you see the founding fathers as real people who had problems and drama outside of forming a country’s government. Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant from the Caribbean that due to a deadly hurricane ended up in the American colonies right before the revolutionary war. Hamilton would later fight alongside general George Washington for the independence of the United States. Once the war was won and George Washington was now the president, he appointed Alexander Hamilton to be secretary of Treasury. Yet in this musical you seem to put that in the back of your mind and instead Alexander Hamilton is a hot-headed man who sometimes makes bad decisions thinking they are good ones. The founding fathers also have friends and enemies instead of being their own person and brand as history book portrays them. In this musical you learn that James Maddison and Thomas Jefferson sometimes thought with the same brain and that they had a rivalry with Hamilton during the time they were all in George Washington’s cabinet. This rivalry lasted until Hamilton endorsed Jefferson in the election of 1800 over his friend Aaron Burr. The musical portrays what would otherwise be boring history lesson into a show most people can’t get enough of. Lin Manuel-Miranda wrote the story in such an intricate way that the complexities and nuances of the plot are not thought of as boring history, you can instead sympathize with every character in every storyline. When watching this show, you don’t view people as hero or villain, instead you see very character’s point of view. This makes the musical an immersive world you can step into by just listening to the cast album.
Hamilton the musical is not only great due to the plot and many storylines but instead what also makes Hamilton unmatched are the intricacies in the music itself. One of the great things about Hamilton is that the music creates emotional complexities in the audience by using motifs. A motif is a repeating lyric, music, or image when it comes to the arts. There are about 30 motifs in Hamilton including those in production, lyrics, and musical ones but the most complete and complex motif is the line repeated by Aaron Burr and sometimes Hamilton himself “Wait for it”. The audience first encounters this line in the song “The story of tonight – reprise” where Lin-Manuel Miranda first sets up the main difference between Hamilton and the person who will eventually murder him, Aaron Burr. Hamilton in this song asks Burr “what are you waiting for” this successfully sets up that Hamilton acts while Burr waits. This motif makes an immediate comeback in the song that make the audience see Burr’s perspective “Wait for it” here the motif makes a connotation to the audience as one of compassion for Burr’s story. Yet this new-found compassion for Burr is forgotten when Hamilton asks Burr to back the U.S constitution and he rejects it that is until the ensemble bring back the motif. Then the audience is no longer angry but instead understanding. This motif takes new life in the song “The room where it happens” where Hamilton who is now in the president’s cabinet mocks Burr’s status in society by saying “You gain nothing if you wait for it”. Now the motif has both the connotation of sympathy for Burr and his feelings of inadequacy when compared to Hamilton. At the point in the musical where this motif comes back Hamilton in no longer on the top of the world but instead he is at the bottom in the song “Hurricane” where Alexander is scrambling for a way to protect his legacy Burr comes in with the ensemble to give the audience a new meaning to his motif, concern at Hamilton’s actions but it is too late to listen to reason since Hamilton says time and time again that he is a man of action. At the end of the musical is when we wrap up this motif with Burr and Hamilton in a dual to the death where Burr screams “Wait for it” after he has seen that Hamilton shot to the sky while he shot at Hamilton. The motif gains the final meaning, the swap of ideals Hamilton waited and shot to the sky and Burr acted and shot his friend. The audience then understand the meaning the motif and are left with all the feelings and connotations this one line of the musical gave them.
Most of the audience is left crying at the end of the musical yet many think it is due to the plot and lyrics. Yet what they don’t know is that Hamilton is musically engineered by the show’s orchestrator Alex Lacamoire to make us cry by using the saddest musical progression known as the descending bass. This musical progression has been used for its lament since 1607 when Monteverdi wrote “Lamento D’arianna” arguably one of the saddest pieces ever written. The descending bass is introduced in to show in the song “The story of tonight” accompanied with a heavy string section representing lament. The string section of the descending bass is reintroduced in the song “One last time” where the show says goodbye to George Washington a prominent character up to this point. The last instance of the descending bass is when Hamilton takes his last breath in the song “The world was wide enough”. In all of these song there is an instance of the descending bass before this song the audience is saying goodbye to life as they know it with the characters so when right before the dual that ended Hamilton’s life they are hit with the descending bass with is also known as the saddest musical progressing due to the feeling if hopelessness it gives most of the audience a reason to cry.
The masterpiece that Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alex Laccimore wrote can only be compared to other historical Broadway shows such as Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera. It has giving the theater community an anchor of what an excellent musical should be in this time. This unique musical has everything the audience needs to immerse themselves into the 18th century American colonies and experience the beginning of our nation while relating to the founding fathers. Engineered to make the audience feel conflicted about the characters and their actions Hamilton takes the founding fathers out of their pedestal and instead portrays them as real human being with an intricate story of survival and also forming the United States governments.