My wife is a fan of the musical theatre, so it should be no surprise that our recent visit to London included the hit musical Hamilton, at the Victoria Palace theatre.* What a curious experience that was! I’m still trying to assimilate it. If you are not familiar with it, the action centres on the life and career of Alexander Hamilton, a major political thinker at the time of the American revolution. This might seem rather eccentric, but the show initially caused a sensation because of the fact that it is composed entirely in the hip-hop idiom. The book and music are written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I have been trying to work out, in retrospect, why the experience was so special.
I believe that the show is so remarkable primarily because of its style and form. There certainly is nothing like it. I have to admit that I don’t know enough about the history of American politics to know whether it can be read as some kind of commentary on the current political situation there. Certainly I found it puzzling that a play about a man who has gone down in history largely because of his significance as a writer and thinker should leave us with such a vague idea about his political ideas. The text is difficult to follow if your ear is not adjusted to rapping (which is certainly the case with me) so it is possible that there was stuff going on there which I simply missed.
Hamilton is a remarkable theatrical experience, and I’m very glad that I had the chance to see it, but I have to admit that I’m left asking myself, “What was that actually about?”
*We had tickets for our previous trip to the capital, but the plan was scuppered by the lockdown.