Unsatisfied: Meet the people who have some reservations about ‘Hamilton’

Published in The Washington Post [PDF]

After the final performance of “Hamilton” at the Kennedy Center last Sunday, Jim Barnett and Faye Elkins stood on the terrace overlooking the Potomac River. The couple, from Bethesda, had bought the tickets three days earlier, when they realized the show was about to end, spending $1,200 for the pair on StubHub.

I asked whether “Hamilton,” the groundbreaking musical by composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, had lived up to their expectations. They actually hadn’t talked about it yet. Elkins quickly said yes. But Barnett shifted his feet, turned his head, scrunched his face. He was preparing to disagree.

I imagine that’s a difficult thing to do. “Hamilton” has won Tony Awards, Olivier Awards, a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize and the first Kennedy Center Honors ever given to a work of art and not a person. It has been hailed as a landmark for bringing hip-hop seamlessly into a Broadway musical, for its nontraditional casting of minorities as white Founding Fathers, and for its thrilling execution of the American origin story. Who are the few poor souls who don’t actually like this thing?

It’s hard enough to exit a theater and hear your spouse hail a work as brilliant and then look them in the eye and declare that they’re wrong. Imagine disputing thousands of fans, every possible awards-bestowing body and Michelle Obama. An aesthetic disagreement can often feel like a moral one.