http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/sunday-review/hamilton-and-the-republican-hopefuls.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article‘Hamilton’ and the Republican Hopefuls
By PATRICK HEALYAUG. 1, 2015
HOW fitting that the Republican presidential candidates will hold their first debate this Thursday on the same night as the Broadway opening of “Hamilton,” the groundbreaking new musical about the founding fathers. At a time when so many American politicians are sanitized, cautious, even boring, the characters on the debate stage and the Broadway stage are remarkably in sync: brazen, unpredictable, even outrageous.
Donald Trump has become like one of those star actors hired by theater producers to gin up ticket sales to a famous old play (or, in this case, a long campaign): Audiences already have a sense of the plot, they know they’ll probably fall asleep somewhere in Act II, yet they come anyway to watch a Trump chew the scenery and make them laugh and wince before the climax (Election Day). Mr. Trump, having rocketed to the top of opinion polls after insulting immigrants (Mexicans, especially) and veterans (John McCain, specifically), will dominate the spotlight at the Cleveland debate no matter whether he’s caustic or — surprise! — cool and civil. People just want to see what a scene stealer does next.
The sacrifices of immigrants and veterans are in a spotlight of their own in “Hamilton,” which deconstructs America’s birth by portraying the founders as far more than the Great White Men of History. Hispanic and African-American actors play George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the central character of Alexander Hamilton, and these and other heroes of the Revolutionary War are presented as outsiders who crave their own path to citizenship.
“Immigrants!” says Lafayette, the French ally of the colonists, to his friend Hamilton before the Battle of Yorktown.
“We get the job done!” the two men exclaim, complete with a high-five.
Rarely has political theater overlapped so much with political theatrics. In one scene Hamilton drops a thick batch of papers several feet to the floor, a screed against John Adams that lands like a punch — a moment that mirrors Senator Lindsey Graham’s dropping his cellphone from a roof, in a recent video, to mock his rival Mr. Trump for giving out his number. (In another video, Rand Paul takes a chain saw to a stack of papers meant to be the federal tax code.) Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry and Mr. Trump have also embraced a call-it-as-I-see-it style of attack that calls to mind one of Hamilton’s slaps at Jefferson: “And another thing, Mr. Age of Enlightenment, don’t lecture me about the war, you didn’t fight in it.”
At times it’s today’s Republicans who seem more in tune with the blunt Hamilton and bombastic Jefferson of the musical. By contrast the leading Democratic candidate in the 2016 race, Hillary Rodham Clinton, occasionally seems like a kindred spirit of Aaron Burr, the Hamilton nemesis who would probably approve of Mrs. Clinton’s refusals to take a stand on the Keystone XL pipeline and the Pacific trade deal. As Burr puts it in one song:
Talk less!
Smile more!
Don’t let ’em know what you’re
Against or what you’re for.
Like the Republican candidates now positioning themselves as unwavering opponents of President Obama, decrying his nuclear deal with Iran and his diplomatic opening to Cuba, characters in “Hamilton” stake out unyielding positions against their political enemies during the drafting of the Constitution and early in Washington’s presidency. But the art of compromise eventually becomes a focal point for the creator of “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, a close student of politics as the son of a Puerto Rican immigrant who became a powerful Democratic strategist in New York.
Ron Chernow, whose biography of Hamilton inspired the musical, said that compromise was the timeliest theme in the musical. “What Lin is showing is that it’s very easy when you’re in the political opposition to take extreme ideological positions, but when you’re dealing with real power, you have to engage in messy realities and compromises to move forward,” Mr. Chernow said.
After six and a half years of “no-drama Obama,” the dramatic flair of the political showmen in Cleveland and on Broadway — as well as Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race — is clearly connecting with sections of the electorate who are hungry for direct, colorful language. The crowds for Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders in particular continue to grow, while “Hamilton,” coming off a sold-out Off Broadway run, has one of the highest advance ticket sales in Broadway history — more than $31 million. Among those who have seen it are President Obama, Vice President Joesph R. Biden Jr., all three Clintons and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Mr. Trump, in an interview, said more theatricality was needed in American political life to rouse citizens and make them take part in the political process. “I don’t like using pollsters because they just want to give you a script to read and turn politicians into unoriginal, safe, timid people,” Mr. Trump said. “Do I get in trouble with some of the things I say? Maybe. But you have to start a campaign by finding ways to get people to listen to you.”
One way, in “Hamilton,” is the rap and hip-hop lyrics that bring a youthful, inventive vibe to the uprising against the British — like a fresh language springing forth from a new country to counter the king’s English. In one scene Washington passes a mike between Hamilton and Jefferson for a rap battle during a cabinet meeting over Hamilton’s plan to establish a national bank and assume state debt.
“Look, when Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky,” Jefferson raps. “Imagine what gon’ happen when you try to tax our whiskey.”
“Thomas. That was a real nice declaration. Welcome to the present. We’re running a real nation,” Hamilton replies.
For Anna Deavere Smith, the actress and writer, that scene reflected the oratory skills and intelligence of the nation’s first leaders with pure showmanship — the sort of combination that she said she would be watching for in the Republican debate. Eliot Spitzer, the former Democratic governor of New York and another fan of “Hamilton,” sees a different lesson in the musical for the candidates.
“With so many Republicans in desperate need of a breakout moment,” Mr. Spitzer said of the 17-candidate field, “the one who has the courage to answer questions in rap will clearly be the star of the show.”
