another cool thing about hamilton:
the line “you have no control who lives who dies who tells your story” is not only an integral motif (ie characters trying to write their own history/control narrative via hamilton largely, but also burr, washington, and ultimately eliza [all of this mingles w legacy, reputation, etc]), but it is also the key component of hamilton’s metafictional structure and delivery.
hamilton isn’t ahistorical but it also isn’t a re-imagining of “what if the founding fathers were poc?“ jefferson is called out for being a slaveowner. abolition is mentioned multiple times throughout the show.
hamilton is historiographical. so, in what is frankly a musical about dead white guys, the line “you have no control who lives who dies who tells your story” reminds us that black and latino actors are the ones who now claim ownership to this narrative of america’s creation. they are the ones telling the story now.
i’m still thinking about this but like..
narrative is what the show is all about. from start to finish, being a story about an immigrant desperately trying to alter the narrative that fate has dealt him to the power eliza has in telling hamilton’s legacy despite his enemies trying to destroy it.
and it translates into the audience and even the commercialization of the show!! the posters with the actual portrait of alexander hamilton and the words “who lives who dies who tells your story” across it. and it’s not who you’d think is telling/engaging in the story! that is SUCH a powerful thing for LMM to demonstrate to disenfranchised people.
this is a story about stories! about narrative and about control over narrative! it’s just so !! powerful !!!