Hamilton: Daveed Diggs on blockbuster musical’s relevance in 2020

Except for a lucky few, Australians have been able to only hear about how great this show is. Now, we can finally stream it.

For five years Australians have had to hear about how great Hamilton is, and without the pleasure of seeing it ourselves.

There are the lucky few who have managed to secure tickets to the blockbuster stage musical in New York or London, if they were organised enough to get in months ahead of any trip. And willing to pay a premium too at roughly $350 a pop, or even more in the resale market.

Then there are those who have listened to the soundtrack trying to visualise the energetic tableau of stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr and Daveed Diggs treading the boards, telling the story of America’s founding fathers using a mix of musical styles ranging from hip hop to pop to traditional stage toe-tappers.

But if you don’t want to wait for the 2021 Australian stage premiere of Hamilton, you can get your fill this Friday.

Lin-Manuel Miranda plays Alexander Hamilton alongside Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr

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Disney paid $US75 million in a bidding war for the rights to a filmed version of a 2016 show of Hamilton, when most of the original cast was still performing, which will drop on its streaming service Disney+ from Friday, July 3.

It was originally going to be released into cinemas in 2021, so this expedited release is a real treat. The timing was to take advantage of audiences at-home due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the soul and message of Hamilton, a story about the foundation of the US as a nation of immigrants and ideals, couldn’t have come at a better time.

Hamilton recontextualises and, to a degree, subverts the traditional founding mythology of the US republic, especially in its casting of actors from culturally diverse backgrounds as key historical figures including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and the eponymous Alexander Hamilton.

“When Hamilton came into existence, it was birthed into a moment that was particularly hopeful for our country,” Diggs, who played the dual role of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, told news.com.au.

“We had a black family in office and the platform that they ran on was one of hope.”

Daveed Diggs plays Thomas Jefferson (pictured) and the Marquise de Lafayette

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Five years on and the Trump-era US is a more divided, antagonistic place in which racist catch-crys are endorsed and retweeted by the man who holds the highest office in the land.

But the urgency of Black Lives Matter protests and the public reckoning around representation and who gets to be part of the conversation is a movement Hamilton can be a part of.

Diggs is not without hope that Hamilton remains relevant to a 2020 audience, perhaps even more so.

“I think there is a hopefulness to the show, that when I look at it through today’s lens is a little more about action. It’s a little more about, if the ideals in Hamilton are not being met by your country, then you have a responsibility to change that.

“If black lives matter enough to you to watch them portray George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Angelica Schuyler, then you also have to say black lives matter enough to protect them in the actual world outside of the theatre.

“Every piece of art is going to be viewed through the lens of the time in which it is consumed, and great art can stand up to being viewed in many different times, and still be in conversation with those times.”

Daveed Diggs won a Tony Award for his roles in Hamilton (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for HBO)

Multi-award-winning Miranda, a New Yorker of Puerto-Rican descent, wrote the music, lyrics and book to Hamilton, imbuing it with his own lived experience as a second-generation immigrant living in a country built on the blood, sweat and tears of newcomers, a fact often undermined in the American narrative.

Diggs, 38, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, born to a Jewish mother and an African-American father. After university, he performed in smaller and experimental theatre companies while working on his music career simultaneously.

When Miranda asked Diggs to be part of Hamilton, originally in a sold-out off-Broadway production before it moved to The Richard Rodgers Theatre, where this 2016 production was filmed, it catapulted him into the big leagues.

He’s currently in the TV adaptation of Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and has featured in Wonder, Velvet Buzzsaw and Black-ish, as well as starring in, producing and writing the screenplay for Blindspotting.

Diggs is a passionate advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, and for the role the wide distribution of something like Hamilton could potentially play in keeping the conversation going, especially in the show’s “deliberate” choice to highlight the contribution of “black bodies” in the creation of the US.

“I think one of the best things that going wide with the show can do is keep that conversation in front of everyone’s mind long enough for us to affect real change, and not get so distracted as we all do because we’re all living our lives.”

Hamilton is available to stream on July 3.

Diggs’ movie Blindspotting, which he started writing in the late-2000s and was finally released in 2018, explores the power imbalance between white police officers and black Americans, spurred on in part by the shooting of Oscar Grant III mere blocks from Diggs’ home in Oakland.

While he said the recent Black Lives Matter protests have been wonderful to see, he’s only “cautiously optimistic” that it will lead to lasting change.

“I don’t feel any safer in America than I have for 38 years. We started writing Blindspotting in 2009 and that movie doesn’t feel less relevant in 2020,” he said.

“I am hoping that the energy that we are feeling right now, which I have felt for many times in my life when there’s been the murder of a human being who belongs to a marginalised group by a figure of authority.

“Occasionally, these things break through and there is a movement that is inspired by the outrage, of trying to come to terms with the fundamental unfairness of our democracy and what our capitalism inspires. That conversation always, eventually peters out.

“But I’m incredibly proud of the youth-led activism that I see, so a big shout-out to the kids around the world who are sick of participating in a thing that they know is wrong.

“Hamilton is about the power of youth to change the world and I think young people are both the most open and the most ready for change.”

Hamilton is available to stream on Disney+ from Friday, July 3

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