70 pages • 2 hours read
Lin Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarterHamilton: The Revolution
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Racial Identity and Oppression in US History
One of the most complex issues with the representation of America’s foundational history onstage is the erasure of the BIPOC and women whose labor was integral to its creation. The founding fathers, who have become deified in the national imaginary and popular constructions of historical narrative, maintained oppressive systems and neglected to abolish slavery. Hamilton addresses this issue by creating a multiracial cast and representing the all-white pantheon of American “founding fathers” (and mothers) with BIPOC actors. The musical has been simultaneously praised for handing over the central generative history of America to those who have been traditionally omitted, and for using BIPOC bodies and musical traditions to glorify a white-centered story. Miranda and the rest of the team used a mixture of “color-blind casting” and “color-conscious casting.” The first term means casting the best person for the role, regardless of race. The issue with this idea is that race is visible regardless and creates meaning in certain roles. Color-conscious casting means openness about nontraditional casting in terms of race but paying close attention to how a certain race creates meaning in the role that may or may not be intended. Hamilton was written for a mostly BIPOC cast with the deliberate choice to bestow people of color with historical agency for the benefit of contemporary audiences who need to see and internalize the image of people who aren’t white doing something as powerful as founding the country. However, this also means that these actors take on the multitude of transgressions committed by their white predecessors.
Using a multiracial cast for this narrative of history makes the discussion of slavery precarious within the world of the play, especially when Black actors embody historical figures who supported the institution. Certainly, it’s a contradiction to have slavery exist in the same world in which the first three US presidents are Black. Although Miranda wasn’t striving for pure historical accuracy, he also wasn’t creating a historical fantasy, which means that slavery is one of the aspects of the story one can’t gloss over. Many of the founding fathers were enslavers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Aaron Burr, who are played by Black actors, although it should be noted that Burr was vocally anti-slavery. Hamilton spoke out against slavery as well, but he also married into the Schuylers, a family of enslavers.
Though Miranda cut from the play the second cabinet rap battle that debates slavery, it’s included in the book. Chris Jackson, as Washington, struggled with this aspect of the character and finally decided to leave the contradiction unsettled. In the final number, Jackson notes that when Eliza mentions fighting slavery, he hangs his head as Washington to signify shame. On one hand, this action forces the long-dead enslaver to take fictional responsibility. On the other, it also forces this Black version of Washington to assume culpability for a structural system that would have oppressed him too. Perhaps there is no correct solution to this problem of staging problematic histories.
In the behind-the-scenes essay, McCarter describes a powerful moment during an early costumed workshop of Hamilton, in which a group of BIPOC actors appear in the recognizable blue coats of the revolutionary army. This image contrasts the familiar depiction of white soldiers wearing white wigs, creating a revised history that bestows symbolic retroactive rights on those who were marginalized. Most historical representations of oppressed people, particularly Black people in the United States, relegate depiction to tragic narratives, defining entire groups by their histories of suffering and victimization. Additionally, BIPOC actors are often pigeonholed into roles that are written for their race. Leslie Odom, Jr. commented that Aaron Burr is the greatest role for a man of color in the musical theater canon because “You get to show all your colors. Nobody asks us to do that” (90).
Immigration and Constructions of America Then versus America Now
The oft-repeated unofficial tagline for Hamilton, “America then, told by America now” (33), demonstrates that the primary purpose of the show’s casting choices is to investigate current structures of American identity and American legitimacy by breaking open the earliest concept of American identity that began with the formation of America itself. Miranda, in partnership with the cast, designers, and the rest of the creative team, deliberately created a performance of history with a thin, often nonexistent partition separating history from the present. The musical presents Hamilton as a paradigm for seekers of the American Dream, a term that wouldn’t be coined until 1931 by James Truslow Adams, which is the notion that America represents a fresh start in which anyone can exercise their abilities and try to achieve success regardless of status or origin. In particular, the musical emphasizes Hamilton’s humble beginnings as an immigrant with no money, familial status, or even social training. Regardless of his background or setbacks along the way, including his untimely end, Hamilton is memorialized as a significant American. He even has the rare honor of having his face imprinted on currency. The musical uses a contemporary understanding of immigration to frame Hamilton’s status as an immigrant. Miranda, who originated the role, fits this contemporary conception as a Latino first-generation American born to Puerto Rican immigrants. Hamilton is touted as the accomplishment of an immigrant about the accomplishments of an immigrant.
In the 21st century, particularly around the time that Miranda was writing and premiering Hamilton, immigration is at the forefront of national conversations in conjunction with negotiations of American identity and citizenship. The terms “melting pot” (coined in a 1908 play by British writer Israel Zangwill about a Russian Jewish immigrant family who escapes persecution by coming to the United States) and “nation of immigrants” (popularized by John F. Kennedy in 1958) have been revived to redefine the United States as country that excluded and built over the indigenous people of the Americas, and therefore is composed entirely of immigrants. If the first pilgrims at Plymouth Rock were also immigrants, as well as the people who created the country in the first place, how can the country justify denying access or detaining immigrants from Mexico or Central America? The musical highlights Miranda’s immigrant status repeatedly as a part of Burr’s incredulous description of a man who shouldn’t have risen to the top. One of the most famous and celebrated lines of the show is a shared moment between Hamilton and Lafayette in which they intone, “Immigrants: we get the job done” (121). The musical reminds audiences that immigrants are an asset, not a threat or a burden, and the notion of immigration is embedded in the fabric of the country.
Historically, Hamilton doesn’t quite measure up to his radical, 21st-century musical theater counterpart. Although Hamilton was technically an immigrant, his parents were both white people of European descent living in the Caribbean. Although immigrants can certainly be of any race, the stigma and discrimination against immigrants most typically targets those who come from non-European countries with populations that are primarily non-white. Spoken by a Black man (Daveed Diggs) and a Puerto Rican man (Miranda), Lafayette and Hamilton’s statement about the industriousness of immigrants hits home in a contemporary America that is struggling to redefine American identity in a way that equitably includes people of color and new arrivals. During the real Hamilton’s career, although he started out with a liberal view of immigration, he became increasingly xenophobic over time, ultimately fighting to restrict immigration. In fact, it was Jefferson who challenged, “Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?” and earned an angry rant from Hamilton in the New York Evening Post, even blaming the absorption of Italian immigrants for the fall of Rome. However, anti-immigrant rhetoric among the founding fathers isn’t surprising given how American identity has evolved over the centuries. Miranda’s Hamilton might not be historically accurate in his views, but perhaps the ends justify the means in this instance. The musical’s unequivocable pro-immigrant formulation of American identity becomes a magical game of “what if?” that has particular significance given the widespread appeal across the political spectrum. In fact, Obama refers to loving Hamilton as the only thing that he and Dick Cheney can agree on.
Writing as Action and Activism
Though Hamilton’s verbal communication in the musical is quick-witted and demonstrates his intelligence, his genius is centered on his writing ability. His initial escape from life as an orphan on a Caribbean island occurs when he writes about the hurricane that devastated the area, catching the attention of townspeople who collected funds to send him to get an education in New York. In the war, Hamilton seeks action on the battlefield and a chance to distinguish himself as a martyr, taking risks with Mulligan to sneak into British camps and steal their cannons. However, those who want to give Hamilton a distinguished position, including George Washington, are primarily interested in his writing ability. He writes the bulk of The Federalist Papers to push for public acceptance of the Constitution. Even in his personal life, after wooing Eliza in person, he fully wins her heart (and Angelica’s) with his letters. For Hamilton, writing is action. He identifies this in the middle of Act II while singing “Hurricane.” Having found himself backed into a corner, Hamilton reflects on his past challenges, recognizing, “I wrote my way out” (232), and making the questionable decision to use writing as action again.
Within the context of the late-18th and early-19th centuries, Hamilton’s use of writing makes sense. In the years leading up to the revolution, print was a way of disseminating revolutionary ideology and spreading it among the colonies to create a sense of unity. When the British imposed the Stamp Act in 1765, levying taxes on all printed material, writing and publishing while refusing to pay the tax became a revolutionary act in and of itself. Printed ideology was powerful and spurred the revolution. Hamilton writes furiously, as if (as other characters point out) he knows that he won’t have enough time and his writing can continue working after he’s gone. Hamilton doesn’t censor himself or use tact, which is something that continually turns others against him. Washington impresses on him early that history is watching him, and Hamilton seems to take this as a call to leave as little ambiguity as possible in his own historical record. He puts everything in writing. When insulting John Adams, he doesn’t simply complain about him but publishes a pamphlet full of witty vitriol. In the case of his affair with Maria Reynolds and the subsequent blackmail, Hamilton keeps inexplicably impeccable records. He has receipts and letters, all of which he publishes along with a detailed account of the affair, because he decides to control the narrative, unable to trust Jefferson, Madison, and Burr to stay silent. Hamilton views potential professional disgrace as much worse than personal disgrace.
Eliza is Hamilton’s connection to a personal life that exists off the record. During the revolution, she asks Hamilton to let her be a part of his narrative but to also learn that love and family are experiences that don’t need to be recorded or historical to be worthwhile. She constantly asks him to take a break from building his legacy to enjoy spending time with his wife and son. When Hamilton publishes the Reynolds Pamphlet, the most unforgivable thing to Eliza isn’t his infidelity but his unilateral decision to open the privacy of their marriage to the public. Her response, which is not quite revenge—Eliza is constructed as a character who is anything but vengeful—damages Hamilton all the same. Eliza burns his letters, asserting that she is erasing herself from Hamilton’s historical narrative. She recognizes that the letters demonstrate his genuine love for her, which might have redeemed Hamilton for historians who compare their letters to Hamilton’s correspondence with Maria, dismissing his affair as a momentary mistake. Burning the letters protects her own feelings from becoming the subject of historical scrutiny and allows her the privacy that Hamilton denied. After Hamilton’s death, Eliza proves to be the key to turning his writings into a legacy. She provides loving curation of his endless documentation, shaping his writings by organizing them narratively for publication.
