Hamilton
It wouldn’t be daring to claim that Alexander Hamilton was just a ten-dollar bill guy for most of the people before February 2015, when Lin-Manuel Miranda created the musical telling us the story of this Founding Father. As the musical called “Hamilton” became one of the most recognizable musicals, among “Beetlejuice”, “Be More Chill” and many others, it became clear that Lin-Manuel Miranda did not throw away his shot.
There is no wonder why the musical was a huge success: the elaborate costumes, the famous singers, good humour, scintillating performances and lively dances. The musical itself has pretty complex structure varying between long sentences and such onomatopoeia as “la-la-la-la-la” in some parts if King George III, which makes the Mad King look even less mentally able. That structure allows it to be action-packed and to show characters as true to life as they can be shown. Even in the first song that starts with the words:
“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”
we learn the key points of Alexander’s life, his relationships with other characters, we learn that none of misfortunes of his childhood discouraged him from working hard and achieving his goals. The next thing we may learn from this song is the end of Alexander’s story — Burr himself foreshadows it by telling that he is the one who shot Hamilton.
Another peculiarity of “Hamilton” is the addition of rap and R’n’B pieces into traditional mix of classical instrumental music and vocal parts of musicals. I believe that by writing such an unorthodox lines Lin-Manuel Miranda highlighted vivacity of the main characters.
In conclusion I’d like to note that I’ m absolutely rapt by the intricacy of lines, by the full representation of female characters (the work the author of the musical did on this part is unbelievably amazing since it’s fairly difficult to find detailed description of a real woman in the books of that time), by the idea to write a musical about some historic personality itself. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a wonderful songwriter and I hope to watch his other creation during our student practice.
