Hamilton
Ensemble Arts Philly
250 S Broad St.
Philadelphia
Nov. 19, 2024
When I was in late high school, I was subjected to two constant streams of noise. In one ear was the sound of my rich peers bragging about their Broadway tickets to a supposedly revolutionary musical written by an Obama-certified genius, called Hamilton. In the other was the jeering of newly empowered, teenage Trumpers. One sector of my school was fawning over the soundtrack of a lauded genius. The other was finding their political footing by championing a new brand of celebrity communication.
I never saw the show until this Tuesday, from the obscured nosebleeds inside Philly’s 1918-era Miller Theater. I realized that the disconnect between the show's original view of the power of language to promote a civil union and the about-to-emerge repudiation of civil discourse. I considered whether political policymaking had come full circle: What was staged as a plea in 2015 has become a reminder of what we have lost.
When Hamilton hit Broadway in 2015, the power of words — in political rhetoric, in high-level artistry — took center stage. The thrust was that it matters what office-seekers and government officials say; their well-considered words, recreated in a modern melodic and poetic river of riffing, could create a nation with checks and balances and limits on power.
Offstage, the verses didn’t ring true in 2016 when Donald Trump won his first term as president. And words mattered even less this month when Donald Trump won a second turn — by riffing and rapping nonsense not to rows of theater goers, but to millions of internet users and TV viewers.
Watching Hamilton after Trump’s second ushering into office reminded me of the ongoing delusion of Democrats, hanging onto an old-fashioned world in the name of and at the cost of true progress – with the hope that op-eds and speeches and plays like Hamilton can sway the country.
I could barely see the stage at the sold-out show. Nor could my fellow cheap-ticketed neighbors (who were mostly rowdy children well prepared to be propagandized, including a full row of Girl Scouts who talked non-stop through the whole production).
It didn’t matter when Marquis de Lafayette’s solos were incomprehensible due to the challenge of spitting fast-paced rap through a French accent. People were there for the energy, the familiarity, the theatrics — not the truth.
The crowd went wild anyway for all the wink-wink musical moments, like the Schuyler sisters imagining their power to lobby Thomas Jefferson to “include women in the sequel” to the rule that “all men are created equal.” The applause, while loud, felt meek — hadn’t we just watched Donald Trump master his own misogynist sequel?
The set was built around a series of rotating concentric circles, allowing the facade of movement around a central spotlight. It struck me that Hamilton is not really a play of ideas, but an obsession over individualism. The thread of the story is Alexander Hamilton’s unparalleled hold on words; he is able to achieve the modern “American dream” by impressing other statesmen with his rhetorical skills (“I’m young, scrappy and hungry and I’m not throwing away my shot!”). He moves his way up from the bottom to the top of America’s political ladder by dueling through letters (or rap battles).
Even the complications of his marriage are understood through words. His wife later burns all the letters Hamilton wrote to her out of heartbroken retaliation.
The soundtrack suggests that words are the key to American mobility, whether you’re an immigrant kid searching for financial stability or an 18th century orphan looking to lead a country. There is nostalgia for the idea that ambition is a fatal flaw rather than a fundamental part of the system we built ourselves into.
We know this is true for few; but liberal elites interested in preserving their own status are typically down to defend the mythos of meritocracy, too. Those same people who used their power to hail Lin Manuel Miranda a “genius” were the ones who responded to Trump’s campaign by dismissing him as “dumb.” There’s more nuance in between those lines. In order to catapult peoples’ natural fascination with character, we have to recognize the fact that public character is constructed, not innately moral.
Trump’s worldviews — especially when it comes to immigrants, women, anyone who’s not a carbon copy of himself — might seem old fashioned. But his political strategy as a bad businessman is relevant. Trump understands that the political arena is no longer like a play, where every word counts. While the Democrats sought to get Kamala Harris across the finish line this year by controlling her image, Trump won by giving zero fucks about what he said, and by stuttering out as many words as possible. By utilizing varied mediums (social platforms, alternative talk shows) to portray himself in different lights, and by rejecting mainstream media, Trump built a variety of illusive “selves” that appeased niche audiences across the board, including a disproportionately high number of people of color.
I was at the Republican National Convention, where Trump gave an incoherent, two-hour acceptance speech for the nomination. I thought it would be seen as a massive failure — but it turned out not to be just a negligible blip, but an indication of his larger strategy. What mattered most at the RNC was not Trump himself, but celebrity characterizations of him: Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson, and family all painting Trump differentially as a macho man, a protector of tradition, a sweet, soft-spoken grandfather. A golfer, a xenophobe, a comedian — the more labels, the more fuel with which to falsely represent America’s melting pot.
Trump has become a coin in the GOP machine. His presidency is soft affirmation that we no longer live in a human-centered society, one where words symbolize human interests, but in a late capitalist shit show where humans themselves are the pawns for larger forces to play with.
Hamilton concludes with a melodic question: “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?” I don’t know what the state of America will be in 20 years time, let alone a century from now. But I wonder if Trump is betting on a patriotic Chatbot authoring his narrative.
Hamilton is showing at Miller Theater through Nov. 23. Buy tickets here. The tour includes a run at San Francisco's Orpheum Theater beginning Nov. 27.
