the filmed version from original Broadway hit Hamilton It comes at an opportune time, not only because we are trapped in our homes during self-isolation in the midst of a pandemic, but because it gives us an opportunity to review and consider the history of this nation’s founding fathers during a national uprising.
So as we watch this extremely popular reinvention of American history created and told by people of color, we can’t help but say the obvious: These are men praised as American heroes who fought for freedom, but many of those same fighters proved themselves. . hypocrites by owning black slaves.
I sat through Zoom for a virtual conversation with the show’s creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Daveed Diggs (Marquis de Lafayette / Thomas Jefferson), Christopher Jackson (George Washington), Leslie Odom, Jr . (Aaron Burr), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler) and more to talk about this historically important moment in our lives, and they certainly had a lot to say about it. The passion leaped!
“If this story belongs to all of us and this is what you want us to repeat the way it happened, that’s fine, then we’ll take it and say it and use our own words to tell it.” ! “Odom reflected.
“Our problems are not new, but for me, what seems new to me about the conversation is that the work everyone has to do, personally,” Goldsberry said. “What is the privilege? Who is responsible? What is complicity? … These are the things that we have to answer and when we looked at the ancestors and mothers of our country, some of these questions were not answered. They did wonderful and miraculous things, but these problems are inherited. “
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“Originally, this was a concept album,” explained Miranda. “I wanted to write a hip hop album, so I never imagined the guys in the statues that are being knocked down right now. I was imagining, ‘What are the best suited voices to tell the story’ and was imagining hip-hop and R&B voices because what Hamilton What my favorite hip-hop artists do is write so well that they transcend their circumstances. All these guys [in the musical] we are complicit in the brutal practice of slavery, slavery is the third line of our program … that is just a prerequisite for the story we are telling. ”
Hamilton debuts on July 3 in Disney +.
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