On Friday, 88 students from Utah International went to the Eccles Theater to see Hamilton! the Broadway, hip hop musical.
Of course I had read all about how groundbreaking Hamilton is as a piece of artwork, not just creatively (the blending of genres) but socially (a cast in which the only white actor plays King George III - all others, including Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Eliza and Angelica Schuyler, Aaron Burr, James Madison, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Marquis de Lafayette, are all played by actors of color). But I was impressed how much the show brought this innovation home. I sat separate from most of my students because I was with the three students who had been chosen to perform their "performance piece" (the school work they were required to create in order to qualify for cheap tickets - an incredible program orchestrated with magnificent panache by a consortium of organizations, headed by Gilder Lehrman.) I could see where my students were sitting from my seat, and knowing that they, as immigrants and students of color themselves, were watching actors of color portray immigrants who helped shape our nation when they were the same age as my students... was a satisfying feeling, especially given the majority of white, affluent kids in the auditorium.
The show glorified war more than I thought it would. Hamilton is dying for the opportunity to lead a battalion. George Washington tells him, "Dying is easy young man, living is harder." But Hamilton is deaf to warnings. And really, he escapes unscathed, either mentally or physically, from the trenches. The only struggle with death comes from his son's premature death in a duel over honor. The war bears no blemish in this story, and perhaps that's Lin Manuel Miranda's point - it took a war to give us this nation, and nothing short of a war would have, so it was a just war and doesn't need to be dragged through the mud like so many other wars are.
I thought the play did, however, give a sense of the difficulty women faced when their men were away from their families at war and in governance. Much the way Jane Adams misses her husband when he's off participating in the first congressional meetings, Eliza feels Hamilton's absence as a personal injury - "if I could be enough... isn't this enough?" she asks as she gestures around at his home and his son... and herself.
At the end, of course, she's the one who "lives" and "tells your story". Her voiced is certainly tinged with desperation when she asks "And when my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell our story?" Two things.
First, she seems to do these things in Alexander's shadow, not just inspired but compelled and in fear of his legacy. It's as though she's doing these things so he will rest in peace, not for her own fulfillment. Thanks to my students' research I know that widows had the most freedom and autonomy in colonial and early American society, so her life may have become much more free after her husband died. Good thing the good Lord gave her 50 more years!
Second, ugh! this unquellable need to leave a legacy, to make a mark that all posterity will recall.
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
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me
You let me make a difference
A place where even orphan immigrants
Can leave their fingerprints and rise up
I’m running out of time. I’m running, and my time’s up
I can't decide what to say about the legacy question. If you have been doing good work, of course you want it to be remembered and continued. But not simply with a monument to you. Let's build monuments, rather, to ideas. That might make the likelihood that work on this idea continues. When I look at the Washington Monument, there is no part of me that things - hey, I could do what he did for freedom. But looking at a monument about literacy, or equal rights, might well inspire me to take action in my own small way. Let's not let legacies unwittingly distance us from the humans, for that is what they were, who did valuable work. Yes, Eliza! Your work is enough! It doesn't have to measure up to any Alexander-sized benchmarks. It only needs to stand the test of integrity: was the work done in good faith, for good causes, without overreaching? Since her mission work was in her own backyard, I feel the answer is more likely to be "yes" than it would have been had she gone outside the US to help other poor tired masses.
Speaking of poor tired masses, the Salt Lake Choral Artists gave a concert called "America Sings" last night. It was a very different portrait of America - songs written about this "great unfinished symphony" in the years after Hamilton helped bring it into being. Most of the songs forgot about the "unfinished" part and just sang about the "greatness". It was a pretty bland concert. And there was no one person of color on stage, though that didn't stop us from trying on Elijah Rock.
This Land is Your Land
Home on the Range
America The Beautiful
Let There be Peace on Earth
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor (from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty - whose foundation on an idea rather than a person I appreciate! Thank you France!)
These were not making me smile last night, or any rehearsal night last month.
The one song on the program that redeemed the concert in my eyes was Song of Democracy, which puts Walt Whitman poetry to words and pays tribute to some of the difficulty of being a democracy, but is essentially hopeful that the "ship of democracy" will carry on. He tells the ship, "Of value is thy freight." I find that a very moving line in this piece. Of value is thy freight, ship of democracy. Don't be reckless. Here's a video of the New England Conservatory giving a concert of this piece, with orchestra (we are only using piano for our version). The part I like best starts at 6:00. The poetry says:
Of course I had read all about how groundbreaking Hamilton is as a piece of artwork, not just creatively (the blending of genres) but socially (a cast in which the only white actor plays King George III - all others, including Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Eliza and Angelica Schuyler, Aaron Burr, James Madison, John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Marquis de Lafayette, are all played by actors of color). But I was impressed how much the show brought this innovation home. I sat separate from most of my students because I was with the three students who had been chosen to perform their "performance piece" (the school work they were required to create in order to qualify for cheap tickets - an incredible program orchestrated with magnificent panache by a consortium of organizations, headed by Gilder Lehrman.) I could see where my students were sitting from my seat, and knowing that they, as immigrants and students of color themselves, were watching actors of color portray immigrants who helped shape our nation when they were the same age as my students... was a satisfying feeling, especially given the majority of white, affluent kids in the auditorium.
The show glorified war more than I thought it would. Hamilton is dying for the opportunity to lead a battalion. George Washington tells him, "Dying is easy young man, living is harder." But Hamilton is deaf to warnings. And really, he escapes unscathed, either mentally or physically, from the trenches. The only struggle with death comes from his son's premature death in a duel over honor. The war bears no blemish in this story, and perhaps that's Lin Manuel Miranda's point - it took a war to give us this nation, and nothing short of a war would have, so it was a just war and doesn't need to be dragged through the mud like so many other wars are. I thought the play did, however, give a sense of the difficulty women faced when their men were away from their families at war and in governance. Much the way Jane Adams misses her husband when he's off participating in the first congressional meetings, Eliza feels Hamilton's absence as a personal injury - "if I could be enough... isn't this enough?" she asks as she gestures around at his home and his son... and herself.
At the end, of course, she's the one who "lives" and "tells your story". Her voiced is certainly tinged with desperation when she asks "And when my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell our story?" Two things.
First, she seems to do these things in Alexander's shadow, not just inspired but compelled and in fear of his legacy. It's as though she's doing these things so he will rest in peace, not for her own fulfillment. Thanks to my students' research I know that widows had the most freedom and autonomy in colonial and early American society, so her life may have become much more free after her husband died. Good thing the good Lord gave her 50 more years!
Second, ugh! this unquellable need to leave a legacy, to make a mark that all posterity will recall.
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
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me
You let me make a difference
A place where even orphan immigrants
Can leave their fingerprints and rise up
I’m running out of time. I’m running, and my time’s up
I can't decide what to say about the legacy question. If you have been doing good work, of course you want it to be remembered and continued. But not simply with a monument to you. Let's build monuments, rather, to ideas. That might make the likelihood that work on this idea continues. When I look at the Washington Monument, there is no part of me that things - hey, I could do what he did for freedom. But looking at a monument about literacy, or equal rights, might well inspire me to take action in my own small way. Let's not let legacies unwittingly distance us from the humans, for that is what they were, who did valuable work. Yes, Eliza! Your work is enough! It doesn't have to measure up to any Alexander-sized benchmarks. It only needs to stand the test of integrity: was the work done in good faith, for good causes, without overreaching? Since her mission work was in her own backyard, I feel the answer is more likely to be "yes" than it would have been had she gone outside the US to help other poor tired masses.
Speaking of poor tired masses, the Salt Lake Choral Artists gave a concert called "America Sings" last night. It was a very different portrait of America - songs written about this "great unfinished symphony" in the years after Hamilton helped bring it into being. Most of the songs forgot about the "unfinished" part and just sang about the "greatness". It was a pretty bland concert. And there was no one person of color on stage, though that didn't stop us from trying on Elijah Rock.
This Land is Your Land
Home on the Range
America The Beautiful
Let There be Peace on Earth
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor (from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty - whose foundation on an idea rather than a person I appreciate! Thank you France!)
These were not making me smile last night, or any rehearsal night last month.
The one song on the program that redeemed the concert in my eyes was Song of Democracy, which puts Walt Whitman poetry to words and pays tribute to some of the difficulty of being a democracy, but is essentially hopeful that the "ship of democracy" will carry on. He tells the ship, "Of value is thy freight." I find that a very moving line in this piece. Of value is thy freight, ship of democracy. Don't be reckless. Here's a video of the New England Conservatory giving a concert of this piece, with orchestra (we are only using piano for our version). The part I like best starts at 6:00. The poetry says:
Sail, Sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the present only,
The Past is also stored in thee.
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone,
not of thy Western continent alone.
Earth's resume entire floats on thy keel, O ship,
is steadied by thy spars,
With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent
nations sink or swim with thee.
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes,
epics, wars, thou bear'st the other continents,
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination -
port triumphant
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