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Revisiting "Hamilton"

 I went back to see "Hamilton" this weekend -- my first time as a married man and father of children. 


One thing that struck me is that Lin-Manuel Miranda isn't consistently interested in Eliza; he seems to try really, really hard, but, in Act Two, you can sometimes feel his pulse slowing to a crawl when he attempts to imagine this character's inner life. (Thus: the puzzling talk about "removing myself from the narrative," "putting myself back in the narrative." Who uses language in this way? If Miranda could try another draft, he might find more moments for Eliza that move beyond "tedious saint" writing.)


I did think of Ann Leary's remarks on "Breaking Bad": "Vince Gilligan doesn't always know what to do with Skyler, so he just has her constantly applying hand cream. Again and again, the camera moves to Skyler, and we see her reaching for her jar of hand cream....")

This isn't to say I lack love for "Hamilton." (I've spent many, many hours thinking about this show!) But, it seems to me, love can include an honest assessment of the loved object's flaws.

Mainly, the excitement I felt Saturday had to do with Lin-Manuel Miranda's self-satire. Like Hamilton himself, Miranda is "a bit much." He is someone who feels that America really needs a book of his own inspiring Tweets. (He retyped his Tweets as a book, and he sold the book!) He is someone who appointed himself to deliver a self-infatuated sermon to the country after the Pulse nightclub shootings. Miranda is just a bit insufferable, and he seems to know this, and he can laugh about his own "Hannah Horvath" qualities. That's sort of charming.

My favorite "Hamilton" moments are any moments in which Hamilton reveals his character through gestures. I love when he appears at a trial: "Do you realize, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the very first murder trial ever to occur in our young nation?" (Burr has a wonderful rejoinder: "My client is innocent. That's all you need to say.") I admire the way "hunger" is suggested when Hamilton deflects a question about his origins: "Unimportant. There's a million things I haven't done. But just you wait....Just you wait...." And I like his bluntness, his way of slicing through skin to get to the subtext: "Don't modulate the key then not debate with me...."

What a treat to spend three more hours with this living, breathing invention, in the big city, on Saturday.

P.S. It seems like LMM was recalling Sondheim's "Dot" while he was writing. Dot says, "Look at what you've done, then at what you want." Eliza says, "Look at where you are. Look at where you started." But I *care* more about Dot--who can be juvenile, gossipy, raunchy, dishonest, peevish, human. I just care more about Dot than about Eliza. That's where I'm at. 
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