| The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | Ishmael Reed |
| Date premiered | May 23, 2019 |
| Place premiered | Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Manhattan |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | Hamilton,Lin-Manuel Miranda |
| Genre | Satire, drama |
| Setting | Present day |
The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda is asatire play by American writerIshmael Reed. It critiques the acclaimed historical musicalHamilton through a depiction of a fictionalized version ofHamilton's creatorLin-Manuel Miranda, who is visited by several historical figures missing from the musical in a style similar toCharles Dickens' 1843 novellaA Christmas Carol. The play echoes critiques made by historians of thewhitewashing ofAlexander Hamilton.[1][2]
Reed debuted the play in January 2019 with a four-night reading at theNuyorican Poets Cafe, and the play was fully staged in May 2019 and ran for several weeks in the same location.The Haunting received mixed reviews from critics.[3][4]
Reed wrote a critique of the musicalHamilton shortly after its debut for the August 2015 edition of the magazineCounterPunch, titled "Hamilton: the Musical: Black Actors Dress Up like Slave Traders... and It's Not Halloween".[5][1] In it he accusedLin-Manuel Miranda ofwhitewashingAlexander Hamilton's role as aslave owner and his involvement in thegenocide of Native Americans.[1] Reed followed this with a second critique for the magazine in April 2016, titled "Hamilton and the Negro Whisperers: Miranda's Consumer Fraud".[1] Reed likened the casting of a Black actor in the role ofGeorge Washington to a scenario whereJewish actors would portrayNazi officialsJoseph Goebbels,Adolf Eichmann, andAdolf Hitler.[4]
The Haunting expands on Reed's critiques ofHamilton, which include "turning a blind eye to theSchuyler family's ownership of slaves and soft-pedaling Alexander Hamilton's elitist politics and his attitude toward slavery."[3] Reed stated that his goal for writingThe Haunting was for it to "be a counter-narrative to the text that has been distributed to thousands of students throughout the country."[2] Journalist Emil Guillermo observed: "So people dance and rhyme to a hip hop beat, does that forgive Hamilton's family, kneed-deep in slavery as slave holders in upstate New York? The musical glorifies Hamilton and his connections. [...] Sure, putting blacks and people of color is a great diversity trick. But the truth still has to count for something."[6]
Reviewers noted that Reed's perspectives are shared by many historians who levied critiques about the historical accuracy ofHamilton after its release.[2][3][4] Critics also noted thatThe Haunting fits with the rest of Reed's career of questioningwhite supremacy in cultural institutions, such as in his 1972 novelMumbo Jumbo;[5][1] Nawal Arjini wrote inThe Nation that "[b]oth works attempt, with varying degrees of success, to reimagine the history taught in school as one in whichpeople of color have power."[5] Lauren Kane wrote inThe Paris Review that "Reed's play is aware of how sticky historical moralizing can be, taking aim even at itself as the spirits bicker about land rights, and while the script is smart in presenting how the project of correcting one another's perspective on history can divide when it should unite, it doesn't pull punches or mince words."[7]
After takingAmbien given to him by his agent,Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is visited by the spirits of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, as well as those left out of his musical, includingenslaved Africans,Native Americans, a whiteindentured servant, andHarriet Tubman.[1] In a dream, Washington and Hamilton reveal their contempt for Africans and Native Americans. After Miranda wakes up, the other spirits try to inform Miranda about their lives, while he appears confused.[7][3] Miranda continuously defers toRon Chernow's 2004 biographyAlexander Hamilton to justify the content of the musical.[1] After Miranda becomes convinced by the spirits' accounts of their lives and the consequences of the actions of Washington and Hamilton, he goes to confront Chernow, who is unapologetic. At the conclusion, Miranda's agent tells him he has been commissioned to write a play aboutChristopher Columbus.[1] Throughout, the play also critiquesHamilton's high ticket prices and "corny" songs.[5]
Reed hosted a debut reading of the two-act play atNuyorican Poets Café in January 2019. Reed stated at the initial reading that the play is meant to critique Miranda for his "shoddy research" rather than portray him as a villain.[1] It ran for four nights and simultaneously served as a fundraiser for a full-length production.[1] It sold out each night.[4] The fundraiser was successful, and Reed stated in an interview thatToni Morrison made the second-largest contribution to the campaign,[9] withRobert Mailer Anderson playing the role ofRon Chernow for the first four staged readings in January 2019.[10]
The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda premiered a full staging at the Nuyorican Poets Café on May 23, 2019,[8] and ran through June 16, 2019.[3] It ran a second time, from October 4 to October 27, 2019, in the same location.[11]
The play was directed by Rome Neal. Similar toHamilton, several of the characters are played by actors of different races, such as Robert Turner, a black actor who portrays George Washington.[5]
In aNew Yorker profile, Julian Lucas observed: "News that someone hated [Hamilton] enough to stage a play about it caused a minor sensation. For those familiar with Reed's work, the drama was even more irresistible: a founding father of American multiculturalism was calling bullshit on its Broadway apotheosis."[12]
The play received mixed critical reception. Critics spoke positively of the acting, the wittiness of the script,[7] and the "catharsis" of Miranda's character being dressed down in the play.[4][8] Nawal Arjini ofThe Nation commented positively on the quality of the acting, stating: "Turning what are essentially history lectures into riveting theater is a tall order for most actors, but the cast is for the most part up to the challenge."[5] Critics also noted that the play ends by painting Miranda's fictionalized character with a sympathetic brush as someone who has been taken advantage of by institutional powers, a notion Reed supported in an interview forCurrent Affairs.[1][5][8]
Negative criticisms of the play described it as overlydidactic. In a review forThe New York Times, Elizabeth Vincentelli stated: "The Haunting is classic activist theater—the haphazard acting is typical of the genre—that prefers didacticism to dialectic. Miranda merely submits to a series of impassioned monologues, a format that saps the show of the energy that would have been generated by back-and-forth exchange."[3] The play was mocked byPeter Sagal ofWait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, who expressed disbelief that anyone could dislike "the most beloved musical of modern times."[8]
The reading was also described as low-energy and boring by Jeremy Gordon ofThe Outline, who said "even though the reading couldn't be judged as a completed play—only a few of the actors were in costume, and there was no set nor action—it was hard to imagine how Miranda getting educated in long, unbroken chunks of dialogue could be staged in an interesting way."[4] Similarly, Hua Hsu ofThe New Yorker wrote, "Some of the history lessons were long-winded and meandering—and maybe slightly confusing without a basic grasp of the original musical...The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda is a minor entry in an important and sometimes overwhelming body of work."[1]
After the reading,Twitter users questioned the validity of the play after critics noted that Reed had not seenHamilton. In an interview, Reed stated that he had "extensively studied" the script before writingThe Haunting.[8] By the time the full production premiered, Reed inserted a joke in the script about missing a mortgage payment to see the national tour of the show in San Francisco.[13]
The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda was published in book form byArchway Editions (distributed bySimon & Schuster) on October 20, 2020.[14][15]
