bear88 said: "Hamiltonfelt like a thunderbolt to me when I first saw it. A brilliantly crafted piece of work, Lin-Manuel Miranda had an audacious premise that he was uniquely suited to write and ran with it. The show helped revive my interest in musical theater. I saw itfive times between 2016 and 2019, as well as the filmed stage production. I recently watched the footage of a young Miranda spit out the opening song, and it’s still a marvel.
But the show now feels like a museum piece, a musical witha political point of view that was already dying out even as it took Broadway by storm. It’s a bit ironic that the big Broadway musicalthat feels most relevant to our times isn’tHamiltonbutWicked.
In fairness to Miranda, he anticipated the ebbs and flows of American political opinion too. Hamilton ends the show politically and actually dead, a spent force with his adversaries in power as well as the ability to shape his historical reputation. When I hear a song from the show, I still stop to appreciate the craftsmanship of the work. It’s just a little hard, in the moment, to think of the United States of America the wayHamiltonwants me to feel."
Those are good observations. I think even at the peak of its power, most of us assumed it was more of a "flash in the pan" massive hit than an enduring forever show like Phantom, Wicked and Lion King. I feel like it's ultimately settled somewhere in between. It obviously has been enduring and is still a big hit but for some reason, it feels less timeless than those other, more popular but IMO inferior shows. It's still an artistic triumph but also feels like a relic of the Obama era. Wicked felt tired on Broadway too the most recent time I saw it but not in a "feels like the Bush era" way and more in a "the show has been running 20 years and is now a machine" way. I think the movie proved it can still feel very fresh. Hamilton feels tired in a different, and somewhat more sad, way.