What's it like to watch Hamilton on Broadway? The hype is real
I watched it on TV first. The songs got stuck in my head. I just watched it on Broadway. Now, I'm ruined; the whole experience is stuck in my head. This article should tell you what it's like.
You’ve heard the hype around Hamilton right? It came out in 2015 and then won 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy, and a Pulitzer. Yeah, so… No way I could afford a ticket after that.
It was a mistake.
I enjoyed it so much, I couldn’t get the songs out of my head for days. I found the tracks on Spotify and to my wife’s displeasure, all our road trips involve at least one song from Hamilton now. Still it stayed stuck in my head.
This time, I was in New York and I finally did it. I found tickets for ~$185 and watched it on Broadway. Including the second half that they don’t stream online.
This may also have been a mistake. Now it is stuck in my head even more - the deceptively cool set, Angelica’s expressions, the energetic choreography, murderous King George III, and the unbelievable storytelling.
Now, I’m writing this piece just to get Hamilton out of my system. Trying to understand why it resonated with me so deeply, why it rang all my bells, why it felt so different!
After analyzing hundreds of books over 34 years, Christopher Booker published a book called the Seven Basic Plots in 2004. Booker distilled all successful literature, novels, and theater into a formula called the Hero’s Journey illustrated nicely below by kanbanize.
Booker basically spent his whole life researching and writing this book and, sadly, it ruined so many pieces of art for me. After understanding this formula for storytelling, I get bored in most superhero movies and Disney movies, because they predictably throw together a single Hero’s journey every time.
I watched Hamilton with similar expectations - expecting a historical superhero movie with the poetry of a musical.
But it isn’t just one Hero’s journey. It felt like many tales intertwined together in a single masterpiece.
How would Christopher Booker explain that feeling? Well, a hero’s journey can be told via seven different plots. Each is like a theme that the hero takes on. It could be a quest, a Voyage and return, a Comedy, a Tragedy, the hero might need to overcome a monster, or go from Rags to riches, or the hero might go through Rebirth.
Basically, this means that all the stories we love boil down to a formulaic narrative structure, and a theme. But in Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda brings all the seven plots together into a single production.
But let me step back - What’s the show about you ask? It is about Alexander Hamilton. This guy:
It starts with an insulting introduction —
<><><><><><><><><><><><>><><><><><><>
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore
... grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
The ten-dollar founding father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
<><><><><><><><><><><><>><><><><><><>
The songs are rapped, not sung.
The plot has romance - but unlike a fairy tale, the love story is messy, more like real life. The characters have depth - like in Game of Thrones. There are moments when you really like a character and then get disappointed because their flaws violate your moral compass. Then the character dies and you feel for the murderer as well as the victim.
The show takes you through a revolution by showing you the stories of the revolutionaries. It is set in a time when America was just a British colony, fighting for independence against laughable odds. But it isn’t just about a war or a hero. The heroines are masterful characters. The villains are very likable.
Have you watched it already? What did you think? Are there any other such shows out there that you’d recommend?
Like any good drama, it takes you through exhilarating highs and despondent lows, and surprises you with a good joke when you least expect to chuckle. Motion and emotion dance with each other.
Theater should have a lot of theatrics. Theatrics are hard to put into words - but let me try with a some examples of how watching Hamilton feels:
The stage moves! Leonardo Da Vinci used to create sets for plays in Italy back when emperors were patrons of the arts. He seems to have come back in the form of David Korins, the set designer for Hamilton. Stages and props move in many plays but I’ve never seen the same stage move in two different directions simultaneously. The actors walk in opposite directions, to create the effect that they’re going on a walk, but they’re in the same spot - like a treadmill.
Alexander Hamilton himself was a prodigious writer, it seems he has come back as a rap lyricist in the form of Lin Manuel Miranda. In one scene Alexander‘s wife Eliza sings a song and I just can’t help the tears streaming down my face. Remember I have already watched this on TV and heard the song a dozen times, so I’m surprised at my weak tear glands. I don’t want anybody to see my cheeks. I wonder if it is just me, or… I look to the left at the eyes of a woman, full to the brim, to the right my friend Shay is pretending to adjust her glasses and slyly flicking away her own tears. It isn’t just me… So, you should be prepared to cry a couple of times because some scenes emotionally wring you out.
The pace keeps changing. At one point, an entire war is fought and won in the matter of a song, at warp speed. Then there’s an unforgettable duel scene in slow-motion. I won’t even try describing it. The pacing lets the singers show off their range while ensuring that the audience can keep up with all that’s happening.
And every once in a while, there’s a murderous king who makes you laugh and releases the tension in the air.
Jean-Luc Godard said that a good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
There’s a critical scene where Hamilton is introduced to his future wife, Eliza by her sister Angelica at a party. Later in the show, the same scene is recreated from Angelica’s perspective. It’s like a “flashback” in a Korean Drama on tv, but executed live on a stage. The lighting goes sepia which makes you feel like you’re going back to the past, the set changes to take you back to that party as you re-evaluate what was actually happening back then. Suddenly the set is reset to the present day again and Angelica has given the party scene completely new meaning. How did they do that? Create a replay of a scene in the middle of a song in a play? I don’t know, but it left me speechless.
I returned to New York for the 5-year reunion weekend for Columbia Business School. Fun fact, Alexander Hamilton is also an alumnus of Columbia University from back when it was called King’s College. He just ended up overthrowing the King for whom that college was named. He was an immigrant, trying to make a difference, unafraid to take a stand, and unwilling to miss his shot at greatness.
I came out of the theater with renewed awe for what human creativity can accomplish. This wasn’t the work of any artificial intelligence - AI, but a work of many Humans with intelligence. Many “I”s who come together to form a team and perform in perfect synchrony.
Go watch Hamilton even if money is tight when you’re in New York. It will be something you will never regret. Or maybe you will regret it because the songs will get stuck in your head for days and you will dream about rap battles that night!
Alexander Hamilton. Don’t wait.