In December of 2016, Westdale’s iconic movie theatre was put on the market. Opening in 1935, the 495 seat, 6630-square-foot, single-screen avenue was a staple of the Hamilton community.
At the time, Ward 1 councillor and longtime theatregoer Aidan Johnson had been working for over a year to designate the theatre as property of Cultural Heritage to help protect it under the Ontario Heritage Act.
“The cinema is an integral part of the original heritage landscape of Westdale Village. It is inseparable from Westdale itself. It needs to be protected,” said Johnson
The Westdale Cinema Group, a non-profit, was formed to purchase the theatre shortly after, and their offer was accepted in February. A group of individuals and organizations alike, they are continuing to find the donations needed to restore the theatre.
The planned renovations promise new washrooms, an expanded snack bar, new theatre seats, state-of-the-art projection and sound equipment, and an expanded stage to host theatre, music and lecture series.
Films remain a priority, but it is apparent that they wish to expand the functions of the area to make a multi-purpose venue.
“Through our Board of Directors, our goal is to create Hamilton’s premier cinema screening experience for art and independent films and a state-of-the-art exhibition space for music, readings, lecture, video streaming and public meetings,” said the group.
Despite these additions and changes, they also promise that the heritage and historic atmosphere of the theatre will remain intact with a restored 1935 façade, restored architectural detailing, a restored auditorium and the consistency of the front lobby snack bar and back lobby lounge.
While restoration of the theatre begins this month, the group still needs $1.5 million. They are accepting grants from all levels of government, but they need additional funds. Their method is a public fundraising campaign called, “Building Magic,” with reward levels similar to a Kickstarter with products and services from local companies and people featured.
The lowest starts at $19.35 with a custom designed pin by local designer Rachelle Letain. The mid levels include a special screening of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with the film’s producer, multiple options for limited-edition prints, the ability to name a seat and the ability to have your message on the marquee for a week. The maximum level is
$10 000, which offers the full theatre for the night with unlimited popcorn and soft drinks for all attendees.
They are also accepting volunteers if you would like to contribute with time instead of money.
“As we build the new Westdale, we want the tradition of presenting magic to continue — whether visiting the Westdale, for film, music, theatre, or to hear an author.”
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By: Michael Dennis
“I think I have seen a light shining strong across the river, the day will slowly overcome this cold… I keep paddling firmly, and deep within I smile… there is a voice calling me, ‘keep rowing, keep going!’”
These are the words that open Izad Etemadi’s play We Are Not the Others, a play that aims to explore immigrant struggles through the real stories of immigrant women in Hamilton.
The performance was held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton from Nov. 11 to 13, and is the result of months of collaboration between students of McMaster’s School of Social Work, members of Hamilton’s Immigrant Working Center and writer/director Izad Etemadi.
Many of the stories presented in the play were collected from the research conducted by Prof. Mirna Carranza from McMaster’s School of Social Work.
“The show is based off of research. Everything in this show has happened to someone in this city, which I think is the coolest part of it,” explained Etemadi.
“I have tried really hard to keep their words as close to what they said in the interviews.”
Through a display of monologue, song and poetry, the play provides a multifaceted view into the lives of immigrants and the struggles they have to endure in order to live a normal life.
“People are not fully aware of the systems in place for immigrants in Canada. Sometimes it’s really set up for failure,” said Etemadi.
“We want to showcase the real struggles that these women have to go through. Not only taking care of their children, supporting their husbands and getting recertified in whatever field they studied back home, but also working 12 hours a day in a job that is hard on their bodies, and trying to navigate this new world in a system that is sometimes unhelpful.”
The play explores many of the barriers that prevent a smooth transition to Canada, such as language.
From being unable to make friends on the playground to not being able to find fulfilling work, without being fluent in English, many immigrants find themselves alone in an unforgiving society.
“We want people to feel those struggles,” said Etemadi.
“Maybe when they are in a grocery store and someone can’t speak English very well, instead of jumping to judging them in a negative way… maybe think ‘what has this person had to go through just to get here’ and ‘why can’t they speak English?’… There is one story that we have… of a woman who says, ‘I never had the privilege to learn the language, because I had to work whatever job I could.’”
Yet, as Etemadi explained, theatre allows us to develop deep and personal connections to individuals we would otherwise never meet, it allows us to move past labeling someone as “the other.”
For example, a woman from Mexico comes to Canada and finds love, only to be confronted with a number of challenges. She struggles to provide for a husband with a progressing illness, and to pay the mounting bills while her husband is unable to work.
It is through the work of a compassionate social worker, however, that she is able to start caring for herself and find a community where she had none.
The play closes the same way it opened, with poetry. “We are not the others, we are just like you, we may have not been born here, but we belong here too.”
The play reminds us to reconsider what we call ‘the other’ and to listen and empathize rather than judge.
Moving forward, Etemadi and Carranza hope to use this performance as an education tool and to make it freely available through the School of Social Work’s website so that all students can listen and learn.
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Creativity within a faculty can be a finicky thing, especially when the program is not typically associated with the arts. The stresses of other activities, mostly related to the horror stories of academics and the real possibility of an eight-year undergrad, can sap the mental and physical capacity to put something legitimately good onto a stage. This year's engineering musical shattered this notion. The expectation has been redefined and a new bar set for years to come. Clocking in at more than three hours long on closing night, its 15-minute intermission felt longer than each of the halves it separated.
Herc, despite not fitting in with most of his peers, set out to become a “True Engineer” with help from his friend Peggy and a bitter upper-year student named Sheldon. Midterms, parties, TAs and the temptations of artsies stood in the way, and the sinister plan of the Dean of Arts, Togo Salmon, for engineering to fall and arts to reign supreme at McMaster was ever persistent. With Disney's Hercules as the obvious inspiration it is a rather campy story overall, and its narrative focus succeeds in providing just enough nostalgia and variation to work.
Humour was dispersed in off-beat intervals as the constant mix of one-liners and longer setups throughout made an unpredictable and varied experience without the loss of comedic timing. The story scenes of the play had a phenomenal rhythm to them. Not knowing if or when a joke was about to come, even with setups already in place, was astounding for an amateur production to pull off successfully. The variety of jokes presented were not at all limited to just engineering or generic satire as you would expect. It was this constantly changed tempo, diversity and execution that brought new life to an otherwise predictable plot-line.
The Silhouette, The Hamilton Speculator, Spotted at Mac and The Plumbline as characters were less varied than the typical script, but still effective. The novelty and lighthearted jabs were entertaining without becoming overbearing. Disguised exposition dumps as interactions between their message to the audience and each other were fine enough. The parodies of Queens, Waterloo and the Deans of McMaster's non-engineering faculties unfortunately fell flatter than the previously mentioned papers and media as the straight-forward nature and stale material were odd low-points of the otherwise crisp writing, though these were rather short.
The musical scenes followed a similar pattern to the writing. At peaks, these numbers were absolutely phenomenal by any measure you could judge a musical by. Confident pieces, particularly in the second half, that consisted of solo or duet parts were exquisite. Each member that was asked to step up to the plate delivered with exceptional performances in these goose-bump inducing situations where cast, band and crew combined perfectly. Moments from these are still firmly ingrained in memory days later, and almost every member involved contributed to at least one of these.
It is when the number grew that I was left wanting more. When the knowledge is there that the entire cast and production is capable of these peaks, it felt like a waste and less than the sum of its parts when songs required more members participating. While there is only so much one could do in the pieces selected, mostly songs from Hercules and pop music from the years since its release, the want was almost always for one of the characters or band members, any of them, to have a segment with the mics up high to themselves. The weird mid-range, an odd but consistent low-point of the sound mixing, of these group pieces had infrequent individual parts to break it up. It is just that inclusion of more of these parts would have benefited. The talent was there for it to be brought to the front, not hidden away in a wall of sound.
Despite these minor issues, the overall experience was a positive one. As long as you were not overly critical, it is safe to say that you would have a good time no matter what faculty you were a part of with some solid laughs and songs to talk about afterwards. The next step up of reaching these highlights more often is a bit more love and a few more tweaks away. You should eagerly await what the engineering musical has in store for years to come.
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Last week, I went to see one of the Honours Performance Series plays, Unoriginal Sin. In the director’s notes, they write, “While we know that this will be something that may cause you discomfort, our overall goal is to make you really consider your everyday views on sex.” I take this to be the thesis of their play, but I don’t think the play successfully achieved their goal. They also stated that they wanted to “tackle the subject of sex in our times as honestly and directly as possible,” and open a discussion about the “complexities” that sex brings to our lives. Unfortunately, the characters were shallow — almost all were essentially the same characters with only two notable outliers — and the “complexities” of sex were watered down to scenes of people making out and dancing together.
I can’t express enough how boring and unoriginal this play was. Not even the masturbation or kissing scenes piqued my interest — both of which were just meant to be shock factors rather than much of a plot point. The humour was very uninspired. When one of the characters (Dylan) is seen flipping through Tinder, he makes a lot of jokes about the app. His gripes are the usual: he doesn’t like when people use group photos as their display photo. Of course the audience laughed — the experience is relatable, and Dylan simply named off everyone’s problems with their Tinder experiences.
Then, there’s a strange, borderline problematic, line. In one scene, Amy and Kyle are on a date — Amy, begrudgingly; Kyle, excitedly — and Kyle spends the whole time trying to convince her to have a good time, and Amy is just bratty about it. Then, Kyle defends his intentions by saying, “when you meet a great girl you have to go after her,” and then calls Amy beautiful. So, how is she a great girl, again? All he knows about her is that she’s attractive. Now, I assume that this was meant to be a subversive part, but I think that that assumption grants the play too much credit.
What I found odd, most of all, was that being gay was either a punch line or a crowd pleaser. In one part of the play, two characters — named Kyle and Dylan — were talking about their plans for the evening, and Kyle made a joke about Dylan being on Tinder, Bumble … and then Grindr, which he and the audience chuckled about. What is the joke here? Is the joke that Dylan is gay? That he uses an app specifically for men who are gay? I don’t know why there was a pause to make it a joke, and I don’t know why the audience found it humorous.
The gay men were a strange piece of comic relief. Even at the end, when taking bows, they came out together with one hand on the other’s back. Why? For what? To continue to get the positive reaction they got when they had kissed on stage and everyone cheered?
Finally, I was confused about the costume design at the end of the play. Everyone was dressed in white. The associations with white are usually “purity,” and “virginity,” yet, at the end of the play, the virgin (Brooke) was no longer a virgin. When I asked one of the cast members what the directors’ intention was with this final costume, they were told that that was just the way it was, although the symbolism of the “pure” white clothing did not fit the tone of the play’s ending.
What I found odd, most of all, was that being gay was either a punch line or a crowd pleaser.
The best parts of the play were those without dialogue. So much more was said in these parts, and the plot moved quicker during the tableau-esque moments.
This play didn’t make me uncomfortable for the reasons they may think — it made me uncomfortable that I had to watch rehashed jokes on stage and listen to an audience laugh and laud about gay men just doing normal things that even heterosexual couples do.
As a final note: I would love to lend my copy of The History of Sexuality by Foucault to the directors.
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By: Joe Jodoin
Eight years after the original Cloverfield was released in 2008, a new iteration of the movie has hit the big screen, but surprisingly, not as a sequel. Just by watching the trailer, there seems to be no connection to the original whatsoever. Producer J.J. Abrams has said that 10 Cloverfield Lane is “a blood-relative” to the original. I was very interested to see the movie and figure out how these two seemingly unrelated movies are connected.
A lot about this movie has made me very excited. First of all, nobody even knew this movie existed until the first trailer dropped in January. The trailer was also fantastic, and left a lot of mystery surrounding what the film was really about. Abrams has even described this film as his “mystery box”, which worked very well in generating excitement and buzz around it.
I felt terribly conflicted walking out of this movie, since overall I really enjoyed it. However, calling it a Cloverfield movie was completely unnecessary. It pretty much contains no connection to its 2008 predecessor, and it seems to have just gotten the title 10 Cloverfield Lane to generate more buzz and make more money.
You’re not supposed to know too much about the plot going in to this movie, as the mystery and surprise are the movies biggest strengths.
A girl gets into a car accident. She wakes up in a bunker with two men who say there was a chemical attack and the outside world is uninhabitable. But one of the men seems to be more than meets the eye, and our protagonist begins to wonder if staying with her captor is even more dangerous than life outside the bunker.
About 90 percent of this movie is filled with tension, scares, and nail-biting scenes, mainly driven by John Goodman’s performance as the unhinged man who built the bunker. His performance stands out, but is complemented by great directing from first-time director Dan Trachtenberg. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is excellent as the female protagonist, and her character provides the lens through which the audience experiences the movie. John Gallagher Jr. is the third person in the bunker, and plays one of the construction workers who built it. These three actors are the only lead actors in the movie, and all three of them do excellent jobs keeping viewers entertained.
While a majority of this movie is incredibly well made and enjoyable, the ending is where things fall apart. Without giving away spoilers, there is a silly twist that makes what’s left feel pretty much pointless. The twist forces a completely different tone on the rest of the movie and takes away all the tension without an amazing payoff.
Not everyone will hate the ending as much as I did, but I’m sure everyone will love the bulk of the movie. I won’t say anything else, because the less you know about this movie, the better. I don’t think it will by as re-watchable as some other movies this year, because a lot of the fun comes from not knowing what will happen next, but I definitely think this movie is worth seeing.
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By: Cathy Huang
I recently had the pleasure of watching McMaster Musical Theatre’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Having already read the notorious play’s Wikipedia page beforehand, I was somewhat prepared for the song, “Message from A Nightingale” going into the show. I was not prepared, however, for just how offensive it would be. The number featured two white cast members in traditional Chinese qipaos (dresses) and chopsticks in their hair, something Chinese people don’t actually do, and another white cast member in a plain green dress and a rice paddy hat.
A musical meant to parody musicals in the 1920s — racism and all — written in 1998, and still performed to this day, does little to actually spark discussion about racism towards Asian people. If you read the program, you’ll see that the director chose to respect the source material rather than the actual minority group he would be hurting. I would like to know how he and the production team handled this with the “utmost care,” and how he thinks “Message from A Nightingale” will “provoke discussion rather than offense.” More importantly, how he thought he, as a white man, was in any way qualified to speak on the complicated and varied experiences of Chinese people.
As the red lanterns and cheap dragon kite descended from the ceiling, I figured it couldn’t get any worse, but then they started singing. The song began with terrible accents and ended with references to Chinese foods and replacing ‘l’ sounds with ‘r’s once the emperor, played by yet another non-Chinese cast member, waltzed on stage. Instead of having the few Asian cast members play Asian characters, white people were selected. If you’re wondering, yes, this does make it more offensive. Maybe they weren’t comfortable playing those roles, but then again, maybe this song should never have been included in the first place.
After McMaster School of the Arts’ decision to put on Lady in the Red Dress this year, a play that highlighted the racism Chinese-Canadians face specifically, it seems a glaring oversight to have consciously kept this number in the production. A brief mention of China’s long history by the main character, Man in Chair, is not only insufficient for facilitating a discussion about a topic so complex, it’s not even relevant to the stereotypes presented in the song. The number was inessential to the plot of the musical, and could’ve been replaced by literally anything else.
But as uncomfortable as the number made me, the more unsettling thing and the reason I nearly walked out of the theatre was how hilarious the audience seemed to find it all. As soon as the Asian-sounding music began, they were chuckling. By the time the emperor appeared, they were howling. I’d been laughing up until that point but in a room full of people, I had never felt more alone in my entire life. I was somewhere between wanting to cry, vomit, and start screaming at everyone either involved or just sitting there and laughing. And that’s a lot like what fighting racism as an Asian is like in Canada. No one takes you seriously and white people dismiss you and non-Asian People of Colour alike because they don’t think your struggles are valid. To you they’re still an expendable joke. From Fu Manchu and Mr. Yunioshi to Drowsy and recent remarks made at this year’s Oscars, the entertainment business has clearly demonstrated how little it cares about us, and how little progress we’ve made in the anti-racism movement for Asians.
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When the list of nominees for the 2015 Cannes Film Festival came out, I was as excited for Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth as I was for Mark Osborne’s Le Petit Prince. Having closely watched both Roman Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth and the modernized 2010 British television adaptation, you’d think I’d be tired of the play by now, but Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy once again proves itself a whirlwind of a masterpiece regardless of how it’s delivered.
If I had to describe the film in one word it would be “desolate.” The film begins in the silence of a haunting funeral, and while a battle cry eventually breaks the startling quiet, the monotony is never quite shaken off. For most of the movie, lines are murmured under breaths, sound effects are scarce and background music far in between, and the end result produces scenes eerily reminiscent of the earliest days of Soviet Montage. With scenes flashing by — shots of the three witches, brief flashes of the apparitions — without a single note or word in the background, Macbeth is almost suffocating in its dark and dismal emptiness as the strange sombre mood is maintained to the very end.
Director Justin Kurzel, however, uses the monotony in the first half to his advantage. As with the battle cry shattering the silence in the film’s first act, this pattern continues in its most significant scenes. A personal favourite is the subdued music that underlines Macbeth’s soliloquy as he walks, dagger in hand, to King Duncan’s room — music that escalates to a discordant peak as the stabbing scene plays out, effectively silencing the actors and drowning out the sounds of the struggle. By the end of the scene, the music fades, the film plunges back into its unsettling silence, and Macbeth’s bloody hands and King Duncan’s dead body soundlessly dominate the screen. The dissonance of quiet and sound reappears in the second half, when the loud cries of “Hail Macbeth!” are juxtaposed with the silence in between each cry. The startling juxtaposition frames the movie in a psychological context I haven’t seen in another adaptation, with Macbeth’s rapidly loosening grasp on reality spiralling blatantly out of his control with each sudden burst of sound in what is otherwise a silent scene. This time, it is not Macbeth unleashing the sounds of fury, and instead he is the one left in a suffocating, artificial silence.
With Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy all having previously tackled the controversial role of the thane-turned-king, Michael Fassbender is the last of the X-Men Professor X and Magneto quartet to take his turn at Macbeth. Fassbender’s Macbeth is fierce and savage, more unhinged than Patrick Stewart’s war period Macbeth and devoid of Jon Finch’s complex vulnerability in the 1971 film. This Macbeth is beast-like even in the deafening silence. By the last act, however, he is despaired and half-gone, his furious soliloquies that are usually spoken in rising volume are instead delivered barely above a whisper. The end product is mystifying, as rare as it is to see a Macbeth whose madness was not depicted to equal rabid screaming, and with this, Fassbender makes the role his and his alone. Alongside him is French actress Marion Cotillard, whose own Lady Macbeth is quiet but terrifying. She plays the role with a subdued, tender weariness, and her exhausted delivery seals the fatigued atmosphere of the film.
What this version appears to lack in consistent cacophony, it nevertheless made up for with its diegetic elements. Scenes alternate between high contrast and low contrast, and the film does not hold back in the required depiction of brutality. Kurzel’s Macbeth is not hesitant with its visual design and symbolism is laid on thick. It plays with symbolic colours, from the dark blacks and browns of Macbeth’s scenes to the blood red saturation of the finale that ultimately defined the film for me. Death hangs above the narrative constantly, setting up for the intended catharsis Macbeth’s death is meant to trigger. As the film reaches its end, the music rises, and the colours become increasingly saturated, until the dark red credits start rolling on screen.
For all that the movie was remotely and desolately silent, it kept me on edge. I was always leaning in to see more and hear more, and with that in mind, I’d like to say Kurzel’s Macbeth delivered more than it disappointed. “It is a tale told by an idiot,” goes one of the most famous lines in the play, despairingly whispered in this one, “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” What this adaptation of Macbeth appeared to lack in sound, it made up for in silent fury, resulting in a version that may be a walking shadow of the story, but one that definitely does not signify nothing.
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With a Grammy category dedicated solely to musical theatre, it’s safe to say that Broadway is largely defined by how good the music is. So when I heard that Broadway actor-turned-stage-director Michael Arden is taking Spring Awakening, a musical near and dear to my heart, and reinventing it with American Sign Language, my first thought was: how?
Spring Awakening is, in the barest of definitions, a coming-of-age story. It’s a rock musical that I, in my first time listening to it, thought to be more messed up and more tragic than it could have been. The musical is set in late 19th-century Germany, and follows a group of teenagers as they discover their own sexualities while faced with adults determined to prevent them from exploring their own lives and bodies. When the play which this musical was based on was first released, it was censored for its unashamed and blunt portrayal of issues such asrape, abortion, the queer identity, child abuse and suicide. Looking back at it now and seeing it in a new light, Spring Awakening is neither messed up nor tragic for the heck of it. It’s not even didactic in the way people seem to assume it is. It’s a musical that’s nothing if not honest and personal, and under Michael Arden’s careful hand, it comes alive again with a newfound intimacy and an intense poignancy.
The musical opened last 2006, with Glee’s Lea Michele and now Broadway vet Jonathan Groff starring as the show’s main pair, and proceeded to sweep that season’s Tony Awards. Last July 2015, Arden spearheaded the first Broadway revival of Spring Awakening by moving it from its home at the Deaf West Theatre and into New York’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre. With him came a cast of both non-hearing and hearing actors and a show presented simultaneously in spoken English, sung songs and choreographed ASL. The result is another take at Spring Awakening, yes, but with double the passion the 2006 production had and with the content even more hard-hitting than before.
Deaf characters are introduced into the story this time around, and for a musical where communication is a key theme, it opens up the show for a different kind of in-depth exploration. It cuts open the musical everyone had gotten to know and love, and bares its bones not just to the audience but especially to the musical theatre community. ASL is a constant part of the choreography for Spring Awakening, and each actor uses ASL, whether or not they’re singing, speaking or signing. The spotlight is on the deaf actors for majority of the production, all of whom are accompanied by separate actors doing the singing and speaking off-stage. The entire cast works together to make Spring Awakening what it is, may it be teaching the hearing cast members ASL or working their way around with non-verbal cues between songs, and the effect is a musical that is enchanting in its own right, with or without the music.
It’s not often that ASL and deaf culture is acknowledged in its entirety as a limitless world in itself, and surely not in a community where music is such a defining factor. It’s rare enough that the entertainment world sincerely and earnestly depicts different cultures and languages co-existing in one storyline. Spring Awakening subverts the idea that musical theatre is strictly for the musically inclined, and reminds the world that music or not, there’s always a story to be found and acknowledged, no matter how personal or intimate.
As the characters wrestle with sexuality and growing up, the Deaf West Theatre’s production drives home the idea that sexuality, especially for those coming of age, is something universal, something that needs to be talked about and shared instead of swept under the rug. With the help of its mixed cast and the poignancy already present in the show, this revival unifies multiple communities while also widening viewers’ perspective.
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“It’s the story of America then,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda about his newest Broadway brainchild, Hamilton in an interview with The Atlantic, “Told by America now.”
Broadway does not have much of a history of diversity, but this time, there’s change in the air. With five-time Tony Award winner Fun Home being the first musical to feature a lesbian central character, NBC’s The Wiz Live! dominating the viewership with its all black cast, and with Miranda’s incredibly diverse Hamilton leading the cavalcade, it’s definitely taking steps to change that, stat.
Hamilton is a story centred around American history. It is the tale of Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s very distinguished and very white founding fathers — who happens to be, in this stage adaptation, played by a Puerto Rican. The musical chronicles his rise and fall from power, a modern tragedy Aristotle would have approved of, with significant historical figures making up the rest of the cast. The narration begins with a rap by Aaron Burr (played by African-American Leslie Odom, Jr.) and ends with an epilogue sung by Alexander’s wife, Eliza (played by Chinese-American Phillipa Soo). Between the beginning and the end is a story that does not disappoint and a soundtrack that never bores, all while trying its best to simultaneously stay true to history and load up on even the most obscure of references.
Still not clear on what the hype is about, exactly? I can take several guesses. One, it’s a Broadway show, yes, and while I do love myself an impressive show tune a la Book of Mormon’s “I Believe,” most of the songs in Hamilton sit right at home in the hip-hop genre. Boasting raps that are as eloquent as they are catchy, and as fast as they are poignant, the show distinguishes itself from the well-known belting of Phantom of the Opera’s Christine and the distinctive melodies of Les Miserables. Two, save for a single character, the whole cast is in fact also comprised of people of colour. In addition to Odom and Soo, former American President Thomas Jefferson is played by Daveed Diggs, who’s also praised for one of the fastest rap solos in Broadway history in his other Hamilton role as the Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette. Alongside Diggs is Christopher Jackson as George Washington, and Okierete Onaodowan is America’s fourth President, James Madison. Three, the musical is very careful in its references to historical facts, but at various points also pays homage to current events, even if that calls for several significant cameo roles or subtly satirical lyrics. Why is everyone so interested in Hamilton? Historically semi-accurate raps, America’s first ever presidents played by people of colour, or current events called out in the form of raps — take your pick.
In light of the recent release of Oscar nominations and the backlash that followed against the lack of diversity (yet again), Hamilton serves as an example of just how misled all the excuses and justifications Hollywood has attempted to scavenge in response are. Hollywood is particularly fond of the “no one will watch it” excuse, the notion that somehow a diverse cast won’t attract as broad an audience as a white cast would. Though musicals are in many ways different from the film industry, Hamilton nonetheless begs to differ. It reached record-breaking sales before its Broadway premiere, and tickets remain sold out until the very end of 2016. The diverse representation has been widely acclaimed, and save for the inevitable outspokenness of those that are personally offended by seeing George Washington played by a biracial man, the cast has received nothing but praise for their spectacular performances of equally spectacular songs. If a show like Hamilton, despite being so strictly about well-known white historical figures, can afford a little wiggle room and repurpose a story with an angle that majority of filmmakers are hesitant to touch, Oscar-worthy or not, then why can’t others do the same?
While I do love myself an impressive show tune a la Book of Mormon’s “I Believe,” most of the songs in Hamilton sit right at home in the hip-hop genre.
Broadway still has a long way to go, but what shows like Hamilton, Fun Home and The Wiz Live! prove in receiving reception better than what anyone expected is that the business excuse is starting to get a little old. It’s about time Hollywood stopped operating under the notion that whiteness is a human default and therefore a storyline must, and instead realize that there is as much potential in the three-way link between cultural excellence, diverse representation, and whatever profitability the cinematic industry seeks.
Better find a new excuse soon, Hollywood.
Photo Credit: Joan Marcus
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