Time is my friend - The Hamilton Experience

I love London.

'Wow, what happened?'

Time.

After my terrible London experience last week, London has very much redeemed itself. It could be that we had a little mini summer this last week (temps of 28/82 degrees c/f), but it also could be that I won a ticket lottery for 2 tickets to see Hamilton at a discounted price. When I say discounted, I mean discounted - tickets were £20 for 2 instead of £150 for those seats.

For those of you who don't know, Hamilton was the 2015 smash-Broadway hit. When I say smash hit, I mean smash hit. The demand was so huge that tickets would sell out for months, and the prices were insane. I was in New York in 2018, and I thought, 'I will see if I can get a last minute discounted single ticket to Hamilton.' The best price I could find was $450.

So this musical is hyped to the max. It was 2:30 pm on a Saturday, and the theatre, 3 levels high, was packed, and when the opening song finished, the eruption of applause and subsequent wooing was epic. This show has some die-hard fans.

It wasn't hard to see why; it was a really well put together show. The songs were creative, punchy and full of heart. The performance was passionate, exciting and edgy. The seats were close... really close. Did I mention we were on the front row? Let's check out my view.

This didn't hamper the experience though, as the action was happening right up close and who needs to see feet anyway. I thought the show was excellent, until the last 20 mins. It was then that I realised why this is the biggest theatre hit of the decade. It was so good, so moving, so heartbreaking it had me on the edge of my seat, which is where I sat anyway to try and see more of the stage.

Out of everything, I was moved by his story. Now I went in not actually knowing much about Alexander Hamilton. I know this will shock my USA friends, but we don't learn about your history in other countries.  So everything that happened, which even though was well documented on Wikipedia, was a shock to me. This is the only way I like to watch anything. I never watch trailers of movies I know I will see, and when this came out on Disney Plus, I chose not to watch it because I knew one day I would watch it live. So this is a kind of  'spoiler alert' but seeing it's a true story you may already know the killer was not the butler, it was Burr.

As a person wanting to leave a legacy, I was inspired by Hamilton's work ethic. He really wanted to make a difference and invested everything in trying to achieve that. In the show, they sing a song called 'Non Stop' and say repeatedly, 'why do you write like you're running out of time?'  He was relentless with his work, often sacrificing rest, breaks, and time with family to create a legacy. But unfortunately, time was not his friend, and he worked his whole life trying to beat it. But he lost.

He broke his marriage vows after spending countless days and nights by himself working. He lost his son to a duel - a horrific way of settling disputes. Then 3 years later, he was shot in the same spot in a duel of his own. He died shortly after. My wife said to me after the musical, 'He was all about legacy, but what about his family? There is no greater legacy'. To which I said, 'Thank you sweetheart, can I use that for my blog?'

Time was always a battle for Hamilton, but he could have learnt a lot from his wife. In the last few minutes of the show, in the song 'Who lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,' she told the audience that she lived for 50 more years after Hamilton's death.  She raised money for the Washington Monument, she established the first school in The Washington Heights neighbourhood, but as she said in the song, what she was most proud of was that she established the first private orphanage in New York City. The most amazing thing is that orphanage, started over 200 years ago, is still around today helping over 5000 families a year suffering from the effects of neglect, abuse, and poverty. That is what I call a legacy.

I know we all don't know how long we have on this planet, but I do know this. Time can enable growth; time can mend wounds, establish bonds, and bring down walls. So instead of pushing to fill my life to the margins every second of the day, I can settle my differences and befriend time and go on this journey together.

Also, I can choose not to fight in a duel.