Photo: Joan Marcus
There are many reasons to treat yourself to a viewing of Hamilton, performed by its original Broadway cast, when it becomes available to stream at your leisure on July 3.
The show has become a global phenomenon, been described as ‘the most revolutionary thing to happen to Broadway’, and propelled its virtuoso creator, composer, writer and leading actor Lin-Manuel Miranda to worldwide stardom. And slightly depressingly, this also may be as close any of us can get to going to the theatre for a while.
The show also grapples with a topic that is relevant to all of us: legacy. What is a legacy? How important is what we leave behind? Should we even bother? Miranda’s ambitious, acrobatic lyrics give us lots to take away to help us answer these questions for ourselves.
By the way, this article gives away some plot points from Hamilton. You have been warned!
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
In the very first song of the musical, we’re told about the family tragedies a young Alexander went through on his Caribbean island home that left him orphaned. And he wasn’t far from death’s door himself:
‘Two years later, see Alex and his mother bed-ridden
Half-dead, sittin’ in their own sick, the scent thick
And Alex got better but his mother went quick.
Moved in with a cousin, the cousin committed suicide,
Left him with nothin’ but ruined pride, something new inside’
The show-opening number happened to be the first Hamilton song Miranda performed in public (to the Obamas in a 2009 White House-hosted event, no less).
Perhaps this trauma is one of the reasons why, two songs later, the newly-arrived New Yorker Hamilton blasts out his big intention for his new life. Over and over again, he declares: ‘I am not throwing away my shot!’
‘Don’t be shocked when your history book mentions me
I will lay down my life if it sets us free
Eventually, you’ll see my ascendancy’
‘The ticking clock of mortality is loud in both our ears, and it sets us to work’
It’s clear that Hamilton is acutely aware of his mortality, and it’s a key driving force behind his ambition. According to Miranda, there’s plenty of scope for an autobiographical interpretation of death’s haunting presence.
In a moment of quiet in ‘My Shot’, Hamilton sings:
‘I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
When's it gonna get me?
In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me?
If I see it comin', do I run or do I let it be?
Is it like a beat without a melody?
See, I never thought I'd live past twenty
Where I come from some get half as many
Ask anybody why we livin' fast and we laugh, reach for a flask
We have to make this moment last, that's plenty.’
Of this verse, Miranda says in a script annotation: ‘This verse took the better part of a year to write. It’s the Rosetta Stone of Hamilton’s brain, and the first line of it is the most autobiographical thing I’ve ever written. It’s what I feel I have most in common with Hamilton: The ticking clock of mortality is loud in both our ears, and it sets us to work.’
In ‘Non-stop’, Hamilton’s friend (later foe and eventual nemesis) Aaron Burr asks him: ‘How do you write like you’re running out of time?’ And perhaps the answer is simple: After his brushes with death, Hamilton, like Miranda, is all too aware of that ticking clock.
What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
We know family tragedy has shaped the man Hamilton has become. And as the show goes on, we can see him wrestling with a big question this raises: What will I leave behind after I’m gone?
Legacy is one of the big themes of the show, and Miranda’s lyrics beautifully encapsulate what a legacy is a few times in both acts.
In ‘The Story of Tonight’, Hamilton leads his new friends in a drinking song, singing:
‘I may not live to see our glory
but I will gladly join the fight
And when our children tell our story
they’ll tell the story of tonight’
Later we meet George Washington, who in ‘History has its eyes on you’ shares some wisdom with his protégé Hamilton: ultimately, our legacy is something we can’t have total control over:
‘Let me tell you what I wish I'd known, When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.’
In ‘The Room Where it Happens’, Hamilton says of his plans for Americas new financial system:
‘God help and forgive me, I wanna build something that’s gonna outlive me.’
And as Hamilton risks his life in a gun-toting duel with Burr in the show’s dramatic climax, ‘The World Was Wide Enough’, he reflects:
‘Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.’
If I say goodbye the nation learns to move on, it outlives me when I’m gone
Hamilton isn’t the only character who has a legacy on his mind. An obsession with legacy is one of the many things Hamilton and Burr have in common. ‘The Room Where it Happens’ starts with Burr and Hamilton discussing how a nearby street has been renamed Mercer Street in honour of General Mercer, who was killed in the revolutionary war:
‘The Mercer legacy is secure’, Burr says. ‘And all he had to do was die.’
‘That’s a lot less work’, Hamilton quips back.
‘We oughta give it a try’, says Burr.
It sounds like Burr and Hamilton might actually be jealous of the dead man, just because of a street name. Miranda says about these lines: ‘In a song about legacy, we begin with Hamilton and Burr bitching about how the guy who doesn’t even survive the war gets a street named after him, while they’re still alive and hustling.’
Later, as the older and wiser George Washington prepares to end his tenure as president in ‘One Last Time’, he explains to Hamilton that he’s stepping down for the good of one part of his legacy — the United States of America. When Hamilton pleads: ‘Why do you have to say goodbye?’, Washington replies: ‘If I say goodbye the nation learns to move on, it outlives me when I’m gone.’
A choice between legacy and love
There are times when some try to pull Hamilton back from his self-obsession.In ‘That Would be Enough’, his wife Eliza tries to remind him not to focus on his legacy at the expense of living in the moment with his family:
‘The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. Just stay alive, that would be enough.’
Eliza is fighting an uphill battle against Hamilton’s ego, and it takes a tragedy to change his ways. In act two, ‘It’s Quiet Uptown’ is a powerful song of loss — specifically, the death of Hamilton and Eliza’s son, Philip.
The grief is a turning point for Hamilton. Following Philip’s death, he withdraws from politics and instead moves uptown for a quiet life of walks and churchgoing. He ultimately never returns to public life. At that moment, he chooses to focus on his family, not his legacy.
There’s no doubt that Miranda, like Hamilton, is a man who values leaving a legacy. In a script annotation, he says: ‘I think we all dream - or it might just be me - that when we pass on, the people we love are going to keep us alive in some way, whether that’s talking about us or keeping our picture up.’
A legacy to be proud of
The show’s gut-wrenching final song gives us another way of putting it: ‘Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’. This song is all about the lengths Eliza went to make his legacy a reality.
In memory of Hamilton, the orphan, she went on to establish the first private orphanage in New York. It’s the part of his legacy she says she’s proudest of — but as director of the orphanage for 27 years, it’s part of her legacy, too. The orphanage still exists today in the form of the Graham Windham organization.
As well as the orphanage, Hamilton’s legacy includes the New York Post, which he founded, and he’s immortalised in his portrait which adorns the ten-dollar bill. Now the globe-conquering show that bears his name can be added to that list. Not bad for a ‘bastard, orphan, son of a whor* and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean’.
Aspiring to such legacies ourselves might be pushing it. But just thinking about what we want to leave behind after we’re gone is a good place to start.
Hamilton is available to watch on Disney+ from July 3.
