Ever since the historical musical
NEW YORK — Ever since the historical musical « Hamilton » began its march to near-universal infatuation, one group has noticeable withheld its applause — historians. Many academics argue the portrait of Alexander Hamilton, the star of our $10 bills, is a counterfeit. Now they’re escalating their fight.
Ishmael Reed, who has been nominated twice for a National Book Award, has chosen to fight fire with fire — collecting his critique of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed show into a play.
Reed’s « The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda » is an uncompromising take-down of « Hamilton, » reminding viewers of the Founding Father’s complicity in slavery and his war on Native Americans.
« My goal is that this to be a counter-narrative to the text that has been distributed to thousands of students throughout the country, » said Reed, who teaches at the California College of the Arts and the University of California at Berkeley and whose latest novel is « Conjugating Hindi. »
Reed, whose play had a recent reading in New York and who is raising money for a four-week production in May, is part of a wave of « Hamilton » skeptics — often solitary voices of dissent amid a wall of fawning attention — who have written journal articles, newspaper op-eds and a 2018 collection of essays, « Historians on Hamilton . »
Miranda’s glowing portrayal of a Hamilton who celebrates open borders — « Immigrants, we get the job done! » — and who denounces slavery has incensed everyone from professors at Harvard to the University of Houston to Rutgers .
They argue that Miranda got Hamilton all wrong — the Founding Father wasn’t progressive at all, his actual role as a slave owner has been whitewashed and the pro-immigrant figure onstage hides the fact that he was, in fact, an anti-immigration elitist.
« It’s a fictional rewrite of Hamilton. You can’t pick the history facts that you want, » said Nancy Isenberg, a professor of American history at Louisiana State University who has written a biography of Aaron Burr and is the author of « White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. »
It’s not just the portrait of Hamilton that has drawn fire. Critics also say Miranda’s portrait of Burr is horribly distorted and argue that Hamilton’s sister-in-law, Angelica Schuyler, was in no way a feminist, as she is portrayed in the musical.
