Hamilton is welcoming its 10th anniversary on Broadway on August 6 (coinciding here in Japan with the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing), so I thought I’d rerun my review of some years back. The NY Times and other outlets seem particularly taken by the musical’s use of race-blind (or, more accurately, race-conscious) casting, though it has always reminded me of the black characters in Get Out who are so desperate to be white. Also, its message of tolerance and love doesn’t seem to have reached some of its cast members.
In any case, I was more interested in the author’s view of history. Hamilton, portrayed in the show as an immigrant, was nothing of the kind: he was a white guy of British/French heritage who moved from one British colony (in the Caribbean) to another British colony (New York), where Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would equally have been “immigrants” prior to American independence, and was pretty stridently anti-immigration himself once the new nation was established. That rather undercuts the intended message of the show. It’s better enjoyed as a parody of history, and in that sense it’s great fun. Here’s my review.
sekenbanashi 