'Hamilton' at the Public Theater

In a miraculous feat of theater-making, composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (creator of Broadway’s award-winning In the Heights) has adapted Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton into a new kind of American musical. Hamilton defies categorization, incorporating hip-hop music and rap lyrics into a pop opera of thrilling nonstop musical and dance narrative.

Miranda has taken on the Herculean task of telling Hamilton’s entire story, from his arrival in the colonies in the early 1770s, to his involvement in the American Revolution and the founding of our nation, to his service as the first treasury secretary, to the writing of 51 of the 85 Federalist papers, to a sex scandal that marred any presidential ambitions, to his untimely death in a duel with Aaron Burr.

What makes Hamilton’s story — and Miranda’s way of telling it —so special is the conflation of the historical and the personal. Hamilton, born out of wedlock, emigrated to New York from the West Indies. Miranda, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, recognizes the definitive role of immigrants in American history then and now, and has captured this essential truth in both the form and content of his show.

A moving history

To emphasize his vision, Miranda, who plays Hamilton, and his director Thomas Kail have assembled a multiethnic cast of 23 talented actor/singers and dancers (mostly black and Latino) who play the many historical roles. “Immigrants! We get the job done!” says the French-born Lafayette to Hamilton, at a triumphant point in the struggle against the British, and the contemporary audience cheers in recognition of that truth today.

Memorable portrayals from this gifted ensemble include Jefferson (played by Daveed Diggs as a fey elitist), Hamilton’s wife Eliza (played by Phillipa Soo with an Idina Menzel voice), her sister Angelica (Renée Elise Goldsberry, an Audra McDonald look- and sound-alike), and the campy King George III (a hilariously foppish Jonathan Groff).

All of Hamilton’s brilliant artistic elements align to create a truly thrilling work, one that is constantly in motion. Kail’s fluid direction fills a two-level set, with its turnstile stage floor and surrounding balconies. Characters swirl around the set and above it, dressed in Paul Tazewell’s stylized period costumes with updated detail. Dazzling dancers in white shoes and tights, topped with vests and short waistcoats, move to Andy Blankenbuehler’s expressive choreography, an amalgam of Bob Fosse and ballet plus its own gyrating modern twist. Howell Binkley’s dramatic lighting throbs to Miranda’s exuberant, pulsating hip-hop score punctuated by R&B, standard Broadway vaudevillian numbers (like King George III’s show-stopping “You’ll Be Back”), and pop ballads (Aaron Burr’s “In the Room Where It Happens”).

Making history with history

Miranda’s marvelous Hamilton is a landmark in musical theater history. Watching it, I am reminded of other such breakthrough musicals in my theatergoing life: Jesus Christ Superstar, which rocked Broadway in 1971; Stephen Sondheim’s Jacobean Sweeney Todd in 1979; and of course Les Misérables (1987), which is, like Hamilton, a musical about history that made history with its nonstop pop score.

Speaking of making history, this is the third musical on a notable historical figure that the Public Theater has produced in recent seasons, preceded by Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (2010) and Here Lies Love (the immersive disco-style Imelda Marcos story in 2013). Kudos to the Public Theater’s vision in producing theater that is creating new and compelling historical narratives and popularizing them with a contemporary vernacular that has broad-based appeal. Hamilton is a musical for new audiences, and the American theater needs them.

Meanwhile, in the center of it stands Lin-Manuel Miranda in the role of Hamilton. “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” he and his spirited company sing at the culmination of this crowning theatrical achievement.

Let’s rejoice that it’s a singular talent in the American theater like Lin-Manuel Miranda who is telling Hamilton’s story for a new generation.