'Hamilton' is Better Than its Hype

When singer/writer/rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda announced at a White House event five years ago that he was working on "a hip-hop album about somebody who I think embodies hip-hop -- Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton," everybody laughed.

They're not laughing anymore.

I was not laughing either, as I almost had to take out a second mortgage so my wife and I could sit wa-a-a-ay up in the back row of the balcony.

Yes, "Hamilton" is a mega-hit, having won just about every honor it can. It has won eleven Tony Awards, a Grammy for best soundtrack album and a Pulitzer Prize -- one of only nine musicals to win in that award's century old history.

We wanted to be, in the words of one of the musical's songs, "in the room where it happens" to see whether it earns the raves it has received -- and my ticket money, as one who is too impatient to wait for the movie version.

I also wanted to see if the production is guilty, as some critics have charged, of "founder's chic," the practice of over-glorifying our nation's Founding Fathers (and thanks to modern DNA tests, we're learning more about who some of them fathered), especially when judged by today's standards of anti-racism, anti-sexism and other culture war issues.

Those are legitimate concerns, in my view, although they also call upon us to judge people by the standards of their day, as much as ours, which is not always comfortable.

For example, Harvard history and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has been credited with reopening debate over whether Thomas Jefferson had a sexual relationship with slave Sally Hemings, said she loves the musical yet has qualms.

"Imagine 'Hamilton' with white actors," she wrote in a blog of the National Council on Public History. "Would the rosy view of the founding era grate?"

Good question. The show's nontraditional casting of mostly nonwhites to portray white historical figures is timely, refreshing and enticingly ironic. It enables us to have a bit of emotional distance to see, for example, white slave owners portrayed by black or Hispanic actors.

But as a product and reflection of hip-hop culture, the play defies attempts to imagine it with a traditionally white cast. "Hamilton" sets out to be more than that. Its multiracial cast and Miranda's lyrics seamlessly connect rap compositions with storytelling in a way that respects and renews the nation's founding narratives.

This, in short, is a patriotic production that, among other messages, conveys the notion that U.S. history is not for whites only. It is U.S. history reimagined for an era in which people of color increasingly are taking more responsibility for a multiracial future -- all the way up to the White House.

Some of us older folks may turn up our noses at hip-hop history, although as President Obama noted, if Dick Cheney can enjoy "Hamilton," I think anyone can.

With young people, the show's popularity is almost beyond question. It has inspired many to write their own historical poems and songs. One is reminded of "Schoolhouse Rock!" -- ABC's long-running animated civics lessons for kids -- except "Hamilton" is more complex, with periodic injections of R-rated expletives.

So why has Alexander Hamilton been so underappreciated for so long?

In fact, much of the reason why Hamilton has been underappreciated -- and had his place on the $10 bill saved by the groundswell Miranda's musical aroused -- has to do with the same sort of political rivalries and historical favoritism that we often see today. Hamilton had his quarrels with other founders, most prominently Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Virginians who opposed his central bank and big-government view of Washington and Wall Street power.

This play turns the tables in many ways by putting Hamilton in center stage. Jefferson and Madison are portrayed as his critics and Washington is treated with reverence without being too sentimental. Washington's greatest moment of glory onstage comes when he leaves the presidency voluntarily after two terms, reassuring that American democracy is working -- and astonishing King George III, who didn't think it would.

That, to me, touches on the value of productions like "Hamilton" that lure us into the theater to be entertained yet also manage to enlighten us. As Miranda has said, his creation is not meant to be the end of our appreciation of history. It should be only a beginning.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)