>>General perception of extremely cringey
I’ll offer a counterpoint. I’ve seen it once live and soon going to see it twice next time it comes to town in a few months. I can’t wait, I’m giddy. A whole lot of people out there clearly are too.
I totally get that some people literally can’t understand rap music words. If you are hard of hearing and aren’t familiar with the story, you are totally lost in the audience (ESPECIALLY as the actors change characters after intermission)
In my experience there’s a group of annoying “New Yorkers” (aka people who identify as New Yorkers, as in they lived there during an internship in college or spent a couple years “working in finance” finding themselves before moving back to Tupelo) who love to shit on anyone who recently saw Hamilton; they roll their eyes and say “oh yes yes I saw the original cast back in 2015, it was cute…” Calling Hamilton extremely cringey sounds like signaling or sneetching vs. an honest critique of the show. It’s a thing I’ve noticed repeatedly and this comment fits that bill, and I don’t know why it bothers me more than simply saying “I didn’t care for it” but it does.
Hamilton is a phenomenal work of art, the White House performance is a peek at creative genius in process, my kids have probably watched the Disney+ production 100 times and know all the words to (almost ;) ) every song and therefore know more about that specific era of American history than I did until I was much older.
Back to the TFA, I think it was such a runaway success compared to other shows because it feels like an intensely personal work of art and not just “let’s copy paste and bang out another ALW formula show.” There’s no shortage of misguided efforts at for-profit art, and people scratch their heads wondering why their absurdist introspection of (fill in the blank) or the kinkade-y reboot of some hit in another format didn’t rake in a billion dollars. The soundtrack is light years more listenable than most other musicals; that’s very subjective but I think it’s a significant part. I appreciate the overarching message of Hamilton, power of the pen, the hope for the future, the need to take smart action, the ability to recover from mistakes, and the inability to recover from letting pride override rational decision making. There’s just so much there.
One more thought on the overall economics of a show not discussed in the article: since shows are largely seen by tourists, as a tourist, there’s more to the cost of the show than the ticket itself. The opportunity cost is the most expensive part, and only devoted fans of theater are going to see more than 1-2 shows on a tourist visit to NYC. If I’m going to see a show, it better be good, and I have little interest in risking a precious afternoon in NYC on a swing-and-a-miss. As such, it makes me wonder if a second line touring circuit is possible for very small shows to get exposure in other smaller cities (any other city besides NYC). It would almost have to be a very intensive 4-5 performances a day for 3-5 days in a city, with a brief but panoramic advert blitz at the local level. The equivalent of a small up and coming music group refining their grind and performance at college bars across the country before hitting it big. Digital projection of sets, keeping a deep bench of local stand ins available as needed, relatively standardized audio production requirements, A reciprocal agreement amongst a network of theaters, with a special deal with a nearby hotel in each market could take a lot of the load and cost off. Maybe it already exists.
(some revisions/edits throughout)