My agent said: “They want to see you for this show, Hamilton.” I had never heard of Alexander Hamilton but I knew it was hip-hop. I’m not really that kind of performer. My agent said: “Just listen to it.” When I did, I thought the person who has written this is obviously aware of all of musical theatre. They’re aware of Sondheim, they’re aware of Kander and Ebb – and Gilbert and Sullivan, even.
The chosen form is hip-hop in parts, but essentially it’s a very strong piece of musical theatre about the creation of the US as we know it. It’s also about a young man who is really struggling to try to make something of himself which is the stuff of musicals. It was so beautifully written, so smart, so witty and yet very raw emotionally. I just fell in love with it.
Aaron Burr was the part which I was most fascinated by. Ultimately, he’s the man who ends up killing Hamilton. They have this rivalry that goes on throughout their lives. He’s regarded as the villain in terms of historical context. But it’s Burr who is telling the story, leaving the audience to decide for themselves.
It was exciting, especially at that point [when the show started on Broadway]. The president was still a person of colour; these were momentous shifts in the US. Often in musical theatre, if you’re an actor of colour, you don’t get to play particularly deep, rich characters. And here you have people who are intelligent, smart, powerful. It was a very big thing to be able to have that group of people tell that story.
The show only hints at the fact that Hamilton and Burr were both enslavers. There was originally a song that specifically dealt with the idea of slavery within this new society. I think it got cut before Broadway, which was a shame, because it was a great moment in the show. These great theorists of freedom and democracy are denying it to another part of the population and the nation itself is built on a huge genocide. It is in there. But perhaps not as much as it could have been.
It was interesting to see how disparate this group of people were, trying to free themselves of the British – and how they were always at each other’s throats. It actually makes sense of the country now, how it sort of barely holds together. They’re always pulling in different directions. And you end up with the civil war.
Weirdly, I started writing my own play (The Meaning of Zong) about exactly the same period in history at pretty much the same time that Lin must have been starting his. So it gave me a bit of confidence that you could tell a story about these huge dramas in a couple of hours by focusing on the individual – so that Hamilton could be a metaphor for the country and vice versa.
Hamilton changed the industry. Without Hamilton’s juggernaut success, you don’t get Bridgerton and other big TV shows. I’ve had more interesting projects, too. The world sort of shifted around me.
As told to Lindesay Irvine.