Xinyi Wang
Hamilton has lightened up Broadway since 2015 with its wonderful mixing of serious history and creative artistic elements. It reflects on the legendary life of Alexander Hamilton — the thriving and devastating story of this tragic giant — yet dissects and then reconstructs it into a story of an immigrant starting from the bottom to fight for the American dream. This is the portrait of America, a country of immigrants. On the stage of Hamilton, this portrait is elaborately adorned with many designs, including elements of repeating lyrics, substantive hip-hop performances, and performers with a diverse background. These designs made Hamilton a great musical, and more importantly, they emphasize the contributions made by immigrants, imprint the growingly diverse society senses of pride and belongingness, as well as awaken everyone’s ambition to build this nation a better one.
That one sentence deeply rooted in every audience’s mind shapes who Alexander Hamilton is. Compared to other founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton is always the more controversial one: he is the youngest, yet he is the poorest; his contributions to the Revolution War and the establishment of the financial system are undeniable, yet his conceit and aggressiveness in politics are widely criticized. However, despite his widely known identity as a representative politician or simply a historic figure, Hamilton focuses on the hindered identity: an immigrant from Charlestown Nevis who realized his value in the land of America. The very first lyrics “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence impoverished in squalor grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” well emphasized the immigrant identity of Hamilton. Throughout his lifetime, his opponent Burr would repeat his lyrics whenever Hamilton made any achievements, reminding others of his inferior identity. Burr is not the only one who kept repeating information about immigrants; Hamilton would repeat for himself as well. At every significant moment in his life — getting married, scandals being exposed, until dying from the battle — Hamilton reflected on his experience immigrating from Nevis to New York and achieving his career. Another character as an immigrant affiliate to illustrate contributions made by immigrants from all over the places: the one “who’s unafraid to step in”, who is “constantly confusing, confounding the British henchman”, Marquis de Lafayette! Lafayette worked closely with Hamilton in the Revolution War, fighting for the independence of the nation without any fear or hesitation. They were proud to show everyone once and once more: “Immigrants, we get the work done!”
The repeating lyrics in the middle of fast beats emphasized the fact that Alexander Hamilton and other gentlemen like him who contributed to the country are all immigrants. They are proud of their identities, while they love their country as deeply as natives do. This elaborately designed element caught every audient’s heart well because it reflects on American society in reality. Ever since the 17th century, immigrants from all over the world migrated into America, and immigration kept changing the composition of the population until today. As immigrants with diverse cultural and religious backgrounds interacted on the same piece of land during the past years, the diversity in culture has become an impression of American society, effectively affecting the development. Though immigrants came from multiple homelands, spoke multiple languages, and believed in various religions, they held the same dream when they step on the land of America, which is to fight for a brighter future. This ambition in common is summarized by the symbol “American dream” and is again well claimed by Hamilton’s repetitive arias: “I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and hungry.” Through all of these repeating arias, <Hamilton> appreciates the significance of contributions made by all the immigrants and eulogizes the “American dream” and the striving spirit of everyone in this diverse society.
Besides the “sung-through” with many repeating lyrics, the hip-hop performances are another revolutionary creation made by Hamilton that further reflects on the immigration cultures. Distinguished from traditional musicals, Hamilton mixed jazz, hip hop, and rock music together, and combined popular music in the 21st century and serious political history in the 18th century together, giving audiences a brand-new vision of classics. The hip-hop performances cater to the appreciation of immigration culture from three perspectives. Firstly, the upbringing of hip-hop matches the life experience of Alexander Hamilton. Born in the slum block Bronx, New York City, and thriving with the black culture, hip hop has been the representative of a popular culture rooted from the bottom of the society. Its specialty in social identity, ethnicity, and a spirit of rebellion fit Alexander Hamilton’s spirit and the revolutionary social atmosphere across the nation at that time well. Similar to the black communities who are proud of their pop culture, Hamilton takes his immigrant identity for granted as well. Secondly, the spiritual core of hip hop reflects on the spirits of minority immigrants, struggling from the bottom-most social status to realize their American dream. Hamilton’s transition from powerless immigrants to founding fathers of the United States is an illustration of his struggling as well. In addition to the spirit of working hard, hip hop’s tradition of “underground” illustrates its supporters’ pursue of freedom and independence; though developing underground against the major trend in society, hip hop lovers never cease to express their eagerness of singing freely and confidently in front of more people in their songs. It is the pursuit of freedom that enkindles the enthusiasm to overthrow the British colonialism in America in the 18th century. Finally, considering the form of expression in hip hop, the strong sense of rhythm and beats, <Hamilton> sceneries the cabinet debates among senior ministers into battles between rappers. As president Washington becomes the host of the battle, Hamilton and Jefferson express their political views regarding national debt and international relationships through hip hop. This form of music makes serious history more acceptable and more interesting for audiences today, taking a step forward to forge a sense of nationalism.
While the repeating lyrics aim at the appreciation of the immigrant community, and the inspirational adaptation of hip hop is to respect the cultural diversity from various communities in the society, <Hamilton> is also excellent in building every character instead of depicting an ethnic group as a whole. This musical is passing on the idea of equality to audiences not only conceptually, but touchingly through every vivid and lively character on the stage. In “My Shot”, Laurens calls out “But we’ll never be truly free until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me” to defend black citizens’ equal rights. In the first cabinet debate, Hamilton suggested irrationality when Jefferson said “We plant seeds in the south. We create.” Because “We know who is doing the planting.” Hamilton and his companions criticized the exploitation of black labors in the south by white elites like Jefferson and appreciated the indispensable contributions made by the black people. Besides, there are several times that Washington faced audiences alone, introspecting his “flaws”. The president is not the only one who confesses to the audiences; in the finale, Eliza sings about how she is “still not through”— after she “raise funds in D.C. for the Washington monument”, “speak against slavery”, “established the first private orphanage in New York City” — she kept asking: “Have I done enough? Will they tell my story?” Eliza is the epitome of millions of women, who were ambitious in promoting the development of society in their ways yet being neglected in the mainstream historic narration. Just as the finale “Who lives, who dies, who tells you a story” indicates, everyone fighting for the nation should be remembered, regardless of his or her ethnicity or gender.
In addition to shaping figures on the stage through their performances, Hamilton also support the idea of equality through its casts. As a Broadway musical based on the story of the white founding father of the United States, “Hamilton” has been subversively using a large number of minorities and female actors such as African Americans, Latinos, Latinos, etc. as leading actors and group actors since its premiere. The main character Hamilton has appeared in multiple productions on Broadway, National Tour, and West End with actors of different ethnicities; in the Broadway premiere version, President Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the Skyler sisters are all cast by actors of different skin colors. Within the increasingly diverse cultural background, <Hamilton> innovates by adopting theories like “conceptual casting”, “cross-cultural casting”, choosing the actors who best fit the artistic performance of the musical instead of who meet the requirements like skin color and such.
As the producer and playwright of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, once said, this is a past story told by contemporary America. Through revolutionary elements on the musical stage including repeating lyrics, innovations in hip hop performances, and dynamic characters, Hamilton constructs an emotional bund between the past and contemporary American society, inspiring everyone to realize their “American Dream”, to love the nation and everyone else regardless of their ethnicity and gender.
The Writing Stage 