Last night I watched the live staged Broadway performance of Hamilton, which premiered for television audiences on July 3rd, 2020. I felt giddy inside while watching. If you had seen the bubble over my head you would have heard me say: Child, these white folks can't say they hate rap and hip hop anymore. General admission is two hundred bucks; if you don't want to sit in the nosebleed section of the theatre, expect to pay a thousand.
I've seen oodles of plays on Broadway in my life - loved them all; even the mediocre ones and the performances that closed early from lack of enthusiasm. When I think of a musical, a Broadway musical, I am never, ever, thinking of Cats. There was a window of time in the 90's, when Times Square was crossing over from seedy to swank and I think Broadway got scared. It filled its theatre's with rank material designed for unsophisticated audiences from elsewhere, -- I'm referring to tourists -- who had a fantasy about visiting New York City and seeing a Broadway show. It was the recycled, can't-offend-anyone years, when Oklahoma, Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera, The Will Rogers Follies, The Lion King and the dreadful Cats installed themselves bringing in audiences that didn't know shit from Shinola. It threw in a couple of shows, like Miss Saigon, I suppose, to keep the locals happy, but for the most part Broadway played it safe by offering up a bunch of fare that could neither offend nor remain memorable.
And then came Hamilton. Running close to three hours you might expect one or two scenes to be boring but not here, not in this production.
Hamilton was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also performs as Hamilton. He's a Puerto Rican from my old neighbourhood in upper Manhattan, Inwood. The entire production was brilliant. Each casting choice was a godsend. Race didn't play a traditional role in the production. It was all inclusive. No one was cast based upon historical similarities to any imagined race. We got to see that craft and ability outweighed the status quo. We got to hear rap and hip hop -- the music of the revolution, (and any and all revolutions), in the hands of our founding fathers. We got to see the dance moves of black bodies in motion for two hundred dollars a pop, under the lights of Broadway, swaying and undulating with splendid beauty. All that energy, all that Blackness, all that rap, all that hip hop, all those poets, all those spectacular performers, who normally aren't given room at the table, outdid themselves. Who wants to go back to Oklahoma after that? That performance raised the bar so high, people better get busy.
When I was wee I often heard the phrase: Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I don't hear that phrase spoken much anymore and I have to wonder if it's because we can all just go out and buy new babies nowadays. What I am referring to is the fact that this morning, July 6th, 2020 there is a hashtag ominously floating around calling for the cancellation of Hamilton because someone has a bee up their butt and thinks the entire production needs to be smothered because Hamilton traded in slaves, and that enough wasn't said, in the body of the production, about the horrors of slavery, and that, like the toppling of confederate statues, it needs to cease and desist. Oi Fucking Vey!
Let me get this straight, a play, a musical, about a bastard immigrant who comes to America and pulls himself up to become a crucial figure in the creation of the America that we know needs to be eliminated because he lived during the time of slavery? You mean, a Puerto Rican playwright who breathed life into a time in American history which formerly was only seen through the eyes of White people should be silenced? Are you saying that the primarily 'of colour' cast should be unemployed because the real Hamilton traded in slavery, (it is said he did not own slaves), or that Miranda should have focused more on slavery? Would a running time of ten hours been enough to suffice? Would it have still been called Hamilton of would a better titled have been: Hamilton, That Dog?
There is a considerable difference between hauling down a public statue of a known bigot, colonizer, racist, conqueror, all around heathen, from a public space that ALL people have to walk by. Look at it this way: How happy do you think Jewish people would be having to pass a statue of Hitler on their way to work? Google public statues of Richard Nixon... not too many to be found. Most of our founding fathers were slave owners struggling with the concept of America, with freedom, all the while that an entire segment of the American population was enslaved. Therein lies the difference. Therein lies the lie. The dichotomy, the American struggle, the schizophrenia.
We can not truly be that land of the free if a whole segment of people are not free. And the insistence that these public statues represent all is a fallacy. It is even more troublesome when we know that these statues were installed in the first place probably by whites only committees. The enslaved and the losers participated in the creation of American too and they have something to say, and it probably isn't the same shit you have been taught or perhaps even wish to hear. You may be happy that Columbus discovered America but you might want to talk to First Nations about your joy before you get too happy. Controversy belongs in schools where we can debate and learn both sides of the story but that would entail an overhaul of American history that is taught from Kindergarten through high school. What's taught during those years, gets debunked, if you're lucky, in higher education and most people don't get that far academically. Which translates to most people having bought, and gone along with, only one side of the story. Controversy belongs in museums where visitors can contemplate history in context.
No one toppling statues is against statues. If I were toppling a statue I'd be doing so with the clear understanding that the figure represented and placed in a position of honour is actually a person who yes, may have done some good in his or her time, (mostly though, his male, White time), but that he was also instrumental in being the forefather of an institution-- slavery, subjugation -- that has seen its way into present times. The toppling of statues is the dismantling of ideas that have actually failed America. It is time for new ideas and thoughts, new blood. A time to get rid of the old and start anew. Time to tell the truth and listen to the experiences of the subaltern. The subaltern is dead tired of being a subaltern. If America is what it claims to be then it has no room for these statues, it has no room for exclusion. It has no right to claim what it is not.
So the hashtag CancelHamilton strikes me as throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Hamilton showcased Black culture in all of its wonderful, gorgeous, mind boggling, ancient glory and for me, I felt proud to see such a production of brilliance. Lin-Manuel took a part of history and presented it through the eyes of the brown and that should never, ever be toppled. That's a beginning of a road, less travelled, but a road we need to be on.
I've seen oodles of plays on Broadway in my life - loved them all; even the mediocre ones and the performances that closed early from lack of enthusiasm. When I think of a musical, a Broadway musical, I am never, ever, thinking of Cats. There was a window of time in the 90's, when Times Square was crossing over from seedy to swank and I think Broadway got scared. It filled its theatre's with rank material designed for unsophisticated audiences from elsewhere, -- I'm referring to tourists -- who had a fantasy about visiting New York City and seeing a Broadway show. It was the recycled, can't-offend-anyone years, when Oklahoma, Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera, The Will Rogers Follies, The Lion King and the dreadful Cats installed themselves bringing in audiences that didn't know shit from Shinola. It threw in a couple of shows, like Miss Saigon, I suppose, to keep the locals happy, but for the most part Broadway played it safe by offering up a bunch of fare that could neither offend nor remain memorable.
And then came Hamilton. Running close to three hours you might expect one or two scenes to be boring but not here, not in this production.
Hamilton was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also performs as Hamilton. He's a Puerto Rican from my old neighbourhood in upper Manhattan, Inwood. The entire production was brilliant. Each casting choice was a godsend. Race didn't play a traditional role in the production. It was all inclusive. No one was cast based upon historical similarities to any imagined race. We got to see that craft and ability outweighed the status quo. We got to hear rap and hip hop -- the music of the revolution, (and any and all revolutions), in the hands of our founding fathers. We got to see the dance moves of black bodies in motion for two hundred dollars a pop, under the lights of Broadway, swaying and undulating with splendid beauty. All that energy, all that Blackness, all that rap, all that hip hop, all those poets, all those spectacular performers, who normally aren't given room at the table, outdid themselves. Who wants to go back to Oklahoma after that? That performance raised the bar so high, people better get busy.
When I was wee I often heard the phrase: Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I don't hear that phrase spoken much anymore and I have to wonder if it's because we can all just go out and buy new babies nowadays. What I am referring to is the fact that this morning, July 6th, 2020 there is a hashtag ominously floating around calling for the cancellation of Hamilton because someone has a bee up their butt and thinks the entire production needs to be smothered because Hamilton traded in slaves, and that enough wasn't said, in the body of the production, about the horrors of slavery, and that, like the toppling of confederate statues, it needs to cease and desist. Oi Fucking Vey!
Let me get this straight, a play, a musical, about a bastard immigrant who comes to America and pulls himself up to become a crucial figure in the creation of the America that we know needs to be eliminated because he lived during the time of slavery? You mean, a Puerto Rican playwright who breathed life into a time in American history which formerly was only seen through the eyes of White people should be silenced? Are you saying that the primarily 'of colour' cast should be unemployed because the real Hamilton traded in slavery, (it is said he did not own slaves), or that Miranda should have focused more on slavery? Would a running time of ten hours been enough to suffice? Would it have still been called Hamilton of would a better titled have been: Hamilton, That Dog?
There is a considerable difference between hauling down a public statue of a known bigot, colonizer, racist, conqueror, all around heathen, from a public space that ALL people have to walk by. Look at it this way: How happy do you think Jewish people would be having to pass a statue of Hitler on their way to work? Google public statues of Richard Nixon... not too many to be found. Most of our founding fathers were slave owners struggling with the concept of America, with freedom, all the while that an entire segment of the American population was enslaved. Therein lies the difference. Therein lies the lie. The dichotomy, the American struggle, the schizophrenia.
We can not truly be that land of the free if a whole segment of people are not free. And the insistence that these public statues represent all is a fallacy. It is even more troublesome when we know that these statues were installed in the first place probably by whites only committees. The enslaved and the losers participated in the creation of American too and they have something to say, and it probably isn't the same shit you have been taught or perhaps even wish to hear. You may be happy that Columbus discovered America but you might want to talk to First Nations about your joy before you get too happy. Controversy belongs in schools where we can debate and learn both sides of the story but that would entail an overhaul of American history that is taught from Kindergarten through high school. What's taught during those years, gets debunked, if you're lucky, in higher education and most people don't get that far academically. Which translates to most people having bought, and gone along with, only one side of the story. Controversy belongs in museums where visitors can contemplate history in context.
No one toppling statues is against statues. If I were toppling a statue I'd be doing so with the clear understanding that the figure represented and placed in a position of honour is actually a person who yes, may have done some good in his or her time, (mostly though, his male, White time), but that he was also instrumental in being the forefather of an institution-- slavery, subjugation -- that has seen its way into present times. The toppling of statues is the dismantling of ideas that have actually failed America. It is time for new ideas and thoughts, new blood. A time to get rid of the old and start anew. Time to tell the truth and listen to the experiences of the subaltern. The subaltern is dead tired of being a subaltern. If America is what it claims to be then it has no room for these statues, it has no room for exclusion. It has no right to claim what it is not.
So the hashtag CancelHamilton strikes me as throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Hamilton showcased Black culture in all of its wonderful, gorgeous, mind boggling, ancient glory and for me, I felt proud to see such a production of brilliance. Lin-Manuel took a part of history and presented it through the eyes of the brown and that should never, ever be toppled. That's a beginning of a road, less travelled, but a road we need to be on.
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