2020 is a year for the history books. It’s like every major event from the past century — from pandemics to economic crises to civil rights movements — decided to have an encore performance this year. This is the worst variety show we’ve ever experienced. We hope we’re nearing the end of Act 2 and curtain call instead of Act 1 and intermission, because, frankly, we cannot wait for the curtain to close on this madness.
If there’s one bright spot, it’s that the video recording of the award-winning musical Hamilton was released early and is now available to stream. (The original Broadway cast audio recording has been and still is available for anyone who has yet to jump on the bandwagon.) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton biography was an instant hit when it premiered on Broadway in 2015, and it still has a loyal following.
The video release isn’t just a celebratory moment for fans; it’s also uncannily appropriate for the times we live in.
The Schuyler sisters sing about “how lucky we are to be alive right now” and “history is happening in Manhattan.” John Laurens declares “we’ll never be free until we end slavery.” George Washington advises Alexander Hamilton that “history has its eyes on you.” And Hamilton himself spends most of the play obsessed with creating and then preserving his legacy. In his final moments, Hamilton asks, “Legacy. What is a legacy?”
Someday — as we did with our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who lived through pandemics and world wars and the Great Depression and the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement — our own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will sit on our knees and ask us about 2020. They will ask what we did when the world fell into the chaos. What stories will we have to tell them?
As the play winds to a close, Aaron Burr laments “History obliterates / In every picture it paints / It paints me and all my mistakes … Now I’m the villain in your history.” Burr’s legacy — as a commander in the Revolutionary War, as a member of Congress, as the vice president to Thomas Jefferson — is wiped out by his most famous mistake: Killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
There is such a thing as the wrong side of history and it doesn’t take much to end up there. Take World War II and the Holocaust for example. When we look back at the atrocities now, we don’t just condemn the Nazis. We condemn the Everyman who stood to the side and let evil do its work. As we dig through the history of the 1918 flu pandemic and read about the Everyman who attended parades or refused to take basic precautions and the subsequent 50 million deaths worldwide, we shake our head in wonder and ask how people could have been so cavalier in matters of life and death.
Well, history is happening and it certainly has its eyes on us. So what is our legacy? As a nation — as individuals? When that child sits on your knee with curious eyes, what story will you have to tell?
Morgantown Area News
'Saturday, May 4, 2024'
