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It's now available on Disney plus (it's a filmed version of the stage production, better than just putting a fixed camera in front of the stage, but nothing like a movie version of a play.) So I'd say it's about the next best thing to being in the theater.
I grew up going to Broadway shows frequently (thanks to the last minute cut rate tickets at the TKTS booth), plus I continue to see a lot of theater (in my 20s I house managed a theater that hosted traveling productions, I've also seen a lot of traveling Broadway shows, local productions). So I have a lot to compare it to.
I just don't get it. Yes, the rap lyrics are good. The songs were mostly not very memorable. Certain singers were great, others just okay. The scenery was nothing, the staging wasn't much, the dancing didn't seem to have much to do with the play. It was as if Lin Manuel Miranda took a US Colonial History class in college, decided from what he remembered of it, that it would be a good idea for a play based upon a founding father who hasn't yet had a movie or play or PBS special made about him. He wrote some lyrics, and decided that in order to give himself the starring role, it would be really innovative to have people who looked like himself, or who were Black, play the characters, who were all White and had virtually all owned people who looked like him and the rest of the cast, and then decided that in order for it to be on Broadway, they had to add dancing.
It was a really good comeback - reverse racism - in that virtually all of the few White performers were ridiculous stereotypes, like a White version of the way Blacks were portrayed in movies from the '30s and '40s. I kept thinking how incredibly shocked the founding fathers would have been, if they could come back and find that the most successful Broadway show in history portrayed them like this - especially Jefferson, one of the most educated, intellectually curious, cultured, and sophisticated men of his era, portrayed by an actor jumping around like a hopped up crack addict doing a manic cakewalk.
It had virtually nothing to do with the actual history of the time and the characters. Alexander Hamilton wasn't some noble abolitionist, favoring immigrant rights. None of them were the incredibly simple caricatures that they were boiled down to in this production.
Honestly, compared to the Broadway show 1776, which dealt with some of the same material from the same era, this was nothing. I just cannot understand why it was so successful. Reminds me of how everyone raved about CATS! when it came out, and when I finally got roped into seeing it, I thought "Huh? THIS is what the big hullaboo was about?" It ran forever, and the critics eventually uniformly panned it. It was considered a joke show for tourists to see. I am very curious to see how history will treat this show, another 5 years on down the road.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
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Originally Posted by parentologist
It was a really good comeback - reverse racism - in that virtually all of the few White performers were ridiculous stereotypes, like a White version of the way Blacks were portrayed in movies from the '30s and '40s. I kept thinking how incredibly shocked the founding fathers would have been, if they could come back and find that the most successful Broadway show in history portrayed them like this - especially Jefferson, one of the most educated, intellectually curious, cultured, and sophisticated men of his era, portrayed by an actor jumping around like a hopped up crack addict doing a manic cakewalk.
I'll never see it, because of that. Racism is racism, regardless of whether it's "reversed" or not.
You shouldn't avoid watching it because virtually all the actors are people of color. Look, it's been a Broadway phenomenon, it's worth seeing just to see what everyone is talking about.
You shouldn't avoid watching it because virtually all the actors are people of color. Look, it's been a Broadway phenomenon, it's worth seeing just to see what everyone is talking about.
I refuse to watch BECAUSE of this fact. What if they redid "Roots" and used whites as the slaves??
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