What he was doing was exactly what Shakespeare
would do.
He's taking the language of the people, and
in Shakespeare's case he elevated it to iambic
pentameter and in Lin-Manuel's case, he elevated
it to hip-hop and rap, and he ennobled it
by turning it into verse, and by putting it
at the center of the stage.
That's exactly what Shakespeare was doing.
And I really believe that Lin's work can be
compared to Shakespeare's.
It has that breadth.
It has that depth.
What other show can we think of that both
does an amazing job of telling an unknown
chapter in our American History, whose political
resonance are incredibly rich and deep, and
whose psychological insight is as profound
as Hamilton?
I think of Shakespeare.
The thing that Shakespeare understood is that
there's no such thing as a private relationship.
Two people may fall in love, but that involved
their families.
And that involves their social status.
And that involves the head of the country.
And that involves their work lives.
So in every one of Shakespeare's plays there
are love stories that are embedded in a network
of interconnections and relationships that
mean everybody is part of the whole.
Lin does exactly the same thing in Hamilton.
He never lets the microscope get narrow.
It'll get deep, but it never gets narrow.
And it opens up and it reflects back to America
- our vision of who we think we are at our
best, and who we'd like to become.
