BRICS are being thrown at the current Western economic and financial order that pervades the world. It is a system largely evolved to prop up an American model whose foundation of regulation, debt settlement and earning of credit along with a fiat currency, is attributed to Alexander Hamilton, right hand man to General and President George Washington. It was revolutionary.
Hamilton the musical, lyrics and music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is revolutionary. It is also timely, as what premiered in New York City, 2015, continues globally in 2023, when England crowns a new king, America readies to campaign for a new president and with brickbats being thrown all round as in the 18th century.
The Mirvish Productions presentation plays at Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto. During the intermission I texted my son Matt, “You should see it and tell me what you think.”
“Maybe one day,” he replied early Sunday morning. “Although I’m not a fan of musicals. How did you like it?” he threw the ball back at me.
So this is what I was “forced” to think: Because it’s largely rap, it [Hamilton] doesn’t feel like the typical musical. The world of performance has rock operas or whatever. I’ve never seen one and apparently the good ones work very well.
Lin-Manuel took a huge chance with so many hours (two-and-three-quarters) of rapping and it works. It’s not under produced and not over produced. Just the right mix of drama and spectacle.
In the context of my background, Jamaica has an annual pantomime starting Boxing Day–a musical spectacle that encapsulates a year of social, political or economic issues and Hamilton reminded me of that. Also, Third World the imaginative show band from Kingston, in collaboration with the late psychiatrist Dr Frederick Hickling, did two reggae musicals, Explanitations and Transmigations, ostensibly reggae operas, that examined Jamaican history and its impact on contemporary psyche. I thoroughly enjoyed both in the late 1970s and Hamilton brought that spirit back to me.
Without being effusive, I’d salute Lin-Manuel Miranda’s talent and endurance for the writing and composition if only for sustaining the focus required for the lyrical and music composition and not leaving his audience bored. Granted his work was made easier by having been inspired in his writing by the 2004 book, Hamilton, by Ron Chernow.
The cast was precise in delivery in vocals and actions on stage.
I came away inspired to examine the veracity of the profile of Hamilton presented on stage and to look again more closely at the dynamics of the American Revolution, the involvement of France, the impact on France’s own revolution and that of its colony St-Domingue that birthed a politically free but economically and financially ensnared Haiti.
If you have a chance you should take a look at Hamilton in “the room where it happens” as one of the musical numbers in act two is titled.
And as BRICS are thrown at Hamilton’s US dollar to replace it as the currency of global trade settlements, maybe we should take a look at the drama of that contemporary song and dance.
About Mark Lee
Editor, author and writer with career spanning print, radio, television and new media.
