Why ‘Hamilton’ Star Lin-Manuel Miranda Is Better Than Perfect
Lin-Manuel Miranda — if you need an introduction — is the lyricist, composer, creator and star of Hamilton, Broadway‘s breakout, breakthrough, break-all-the-rules, hip-hop-infused musical (the stage is a turntable!) about the life of United States of America founding father Alexander Hamilton. The show has made him a certified Genius and a friend of the Obamas. In addition to this morning’s record-breaking 16 Tony nominations, with a nod to Miranda for Best Lead Actor in a Musical, the show has been a magnet for awards, including the first uncontested Pulitzer Prize for a musical since 1996’s Rent (2010’s win for Next to Normal was, in fact, controversial). What Miranda’s masterpiece has not done is make him a great singer. In some ways he is, to use a word being tossed around a lot these days in American politics, “unqualified.”
“I can’t sing well enough to be the Man of La Mancha,” Miranda told PBS. As skilled of a writer and rapper and actor as he may be, Miranda does not have the booming, belting Broadway bluster of, say, his castmates Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson or Leslie Odom Jr. — or longtime legends including Norm Lewis, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Billy Porter. But something happened when, having seen Miranda perform in the show about a dozen times, I chanced upon a Sunday performance with his alternate, Javier Muñoz, about whom The New York Times went out of its way to declare “Alexander Hamilton is sexy on Sundays.” He performed when the Obamas saw the show, and for Jay Z and Beyoncé. Expert theater-goers, including Mel Brooks, called Muñoz “better.” And he was. Sort of.
Suddenly there was a fullness to songs, including “Hurricane,” “The Story of Tonight” and “That Would Be Enough.” Miranda’s salty uptown Nuyorican accent was replaced with Muñoz’s enunciated elocution (though born and raised in Brooklyn, he has the voice of any yoga teacher in Silver Lake). The anger had been exfoliated off the role. Muñoz delivers smoothness, ironed out by the weight of fitting in. With Muñoz, you can foresee the day years from now when the role of Hamilton will be played by a Mario Lopez, Oscar Isaac or Pitbull to help flagging sales.
People see Muñoz and they see a transferable talent. He can play the Man of La Mancha. Or the Phantom. Or Jean Valjean. Miranda, not so much. Indeed, it’s a testament to his charisma that Miranda is the epicenter of musical theater as a performer despite not being able to sing or dance (there are lots of scenes where Hamilton is literally just standing there as the pop-and-lock ensemble swirls around him, and even that has him aching for arthritis-strength Tylenol).
What Miranda has accomplished is a feat worthy in equal parts of both Merlin and Magellan, not just applying a kind of alchemy to the formula of stagecraft to adapt it to a more-diverse America, but to send Broadway itself setting sail into a New World — new artistic territory — what The New York Times called “a sweet spot you would not have imagined existed, somehow managing to be hip, sentimental, irreverent and deeply patriotic all at the same time.”