Wife asked me last night if I wanted to see Hamilton on Disney+, to which I quickly responded no. We had a pretty long day outside grilling and swimming and having a good time, even if it was just us, DD and his GF. We actually went up to our bedroom by 10:00pm and I thought we were going to call it an early night. As usual, I laid in bed playing on my phone watching Tik Tok videos and Wife sat on one of our leather chairs and watched TV. I fell asleep for at least an hour before waking around 11:30pm and even wondering to Wife, wow, the day isn't even over yet and I am worn out. She continued watching TV, I somehow stayed awake, then she switched over to the ROKU, went to pee and started watching the beginning of Hamilton. I was going to go to sleep, went to pee myself and came back to a snappy rap by a bunch of black guys dressed like our forefathers. I figured this was the play, but was heavily confused by the actors, for a minute. It seemed like 90 percent of the actors were black or mixed which if we are watching a period type of show, I wouldn't expect that. At one point Wife asked, knowing the answer "was Aaron Burr black?" I said "no, all I remember about him is he shot somebody in a duel." (the somebody was Hamilton) I could not stop watching and within the first minute I was hooked. I did get heavily sleepy by the second half, it is about 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but hung in there until about 3:45am.
The play takes us through the life of Alexander Hamilton, he was one of our founding fathers, though he did not sign the Declaration of Independence, he did frame the Constitution, was a founder of the Federalist Party, the first Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington, founded the polity's financial system, founded the Coast Guard, and the New York Post. He was very influential in our early years as George Washington's "aide de camp" (his right hand man as they sing in the play), and as Washington's chief staff aide, he handled the bulk of correspondence to Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals of the Continental Army. Hamilton had a hunger and a desire all his life to succeed and leave a mark on this earth. He seemed to value his career path more than a social and family life. He did eventually marry, possibly to advance his position in life as he chose one of the Schuyler sisters, Eliza, even though he seemed more interested and aligned with the eldest, Angelica. Still, he was married for 24 years and they did have eight children, the eldest Phillip died by duel three years earlier than when his father would meet the same fate.
I can see the popularity of this play, we (Americans as a majority) aren't usually interested in plays but this one falls into one of those interesting rare points of interest, such as Chicago, mostly because it gives us an inside look into our history, and honestly even if the whole is not entirely historically correct, it was entertaining and worth the time spent. I would even say I am looking forward to seeing it again today while I am fully awake and alert because it does move through the actions of the man's life swiftly.
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