“Hamilton” was first performed on February 17, 2015. It has been on Broadway for about 10 years.
Lin Manuel Miranda started writing “Hamilton” in 2009, not finishing until months before the first performance. The musical is about 2 hours and 45 minutes long. It consists of 46 songs split up evenly between two acts. Hamilton is a hip-hop/R&B-infused musical. The musical tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton’s life. It explores his career, his ambition, his political rivalries and his love life.
“Alexander Hamilton” is the first song of the musical that acts as an expository prologue to the first two decades of Hamilton’s life. It describes his early life as an orphan and illegitimate orphan born in the Caribbean, facing adversity including the hurricane that destroyed his town. The song highlights his intelligence, and his writing ability to escape poverty. The song chronicles his arrival in New York, his education and the beginning of his involvement in the Revolutionary War. Important characters within the play are introduced in this song and act as the narrators, with each describing their relationship to Hamilton. There is foreshadowing featured throughout with lines like “I fought with him,” “I trusted him,‘ “I loved him,” and Aaron Burr identifying himself as “the fool that shot him,” outlining the entire story just in the first song.
“Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” is the song right after Hamilton’s death and the last song of the entire musical. The song is almost entirely Eliza Hamilton reflecting on her life and taking responsibility for preserving Hamilton’s legacy. Eliza shares her accomplishments after his death including opening New York City’s first private orphanage and helping raise funds for the Washington Monument. At the end, it is hinted that this whole musical was really about Eliza in a way, telling a story of her legacy, love and endurance. The song explores the theme that you cannot control how you are remembered, rather it is up to those who live long enough to decide how your narrative is told.
“Hamilton” deserves a 10/10 rating as it has deep meaning in every lyric, the songs are catchy and the musical in its entirety never really gets old.
