Hamilton

Since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton opened off-Broadway in New York in February 2015, I have tried to find a way to see the eternally sold-out show without selling a kidney. Finally in late August, thanks to a friend who works there, I went to see the genre-changing show that blends together old operas like The Pirates of Penzance with pop, rap, and hip-hop into something addictive and wonderful.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you could’ve been anywhere in the world tonight, but you’re here with us in New York City,” George Washington says at the beginning of “Cabinet Battle #1.” “Are you ready for a cabinet meeting?”

The musical opens in Chicago Sept. 27 and begins a national tour next spring. Though Broadway shows have a relatively narrow audience, Hamilton has already become part of the cultural lexicon, with memorable lines like, “The ten-dollar founding father without a father.”

Miranda wrote his musical based on Ron Chernow’s biography of the little-regarded founding father, an orphan who immigrated to the United States, becoming a war hero and right-hand man to George Washington before creating the U.S. financial system.

A frenzy filled the air at the Richard Rodgers Theatre before the performance, even though several of the members of the original cast have left the show—notably Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr, and Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson/the Marquis de Lafayette. Those departures shouldn’t keep anyone away. The newest replacements, Javier Muñoz as Hamilton and Brandon Victor Dixon as Burr, shine. Muñoz is a stronger singer than Miranda, whose specialties are rapping and composing.

The audience whooped and hollered when Muñoz first appeared onstage, and the magic tension in the room continued for the next 2½ hours. When the Marquis de Lafayette and Hamilton high-fived each other at one point, rapping, “Immigrants—we get the job done,” the crowd cheered. The cast is nonwhite except for the British characters—emphasizing the story of America as a “nation of immigrants.”

Miranda throws a celebratory joy in the face of America’s racial past—look at what this one immigrant orphan did! How much greater could America have been, if not for our sins! After the show I thought of Proverbs 13:23: “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” After seeing Hamilton, you think not, “Woe is us,” but rather, “What good things did we miss in all those fallow years?”

The most powerful moment was when Burr and Hamilton sat on two chairs alone facing the audience and sang to their newborn children in “Dear Theodosia,” a song that feels like the culmination of the story.

“If we lay a strong enough foundation / We’ll pass it on to you / We’ll give the world to you,” Burr sings.

But with Hamilton, you keep discovering different pinnacle moments. The writing is as layered as the musical genres Miranda samples from. The musical does contain a handful of curse words and some adult themes connected to Hamilton’s marital infidelity. But Miranda also references Hamilton’s return to his Christian faith later in his life, after his son dies.

“I never liked the quiet before,” Hamilton sings. “I take the children to church on Sunday / A sign of the cross at the door / And I pray / That never used to happen before.”

Grief is one appropriate response to the mess of the world, but aside from a few somber moments, Miranda’s response is exuberance. That’s why this show is so captivating to all kinds of audiences. I left the theater wanting to do something meaningful with my life, to get to work.

“Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now,” several characters sing.