فصل 07

VII

ON THE CHARACTER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON and the Character of CHRIS JACKSON

George washington was first in war, first in peace, and first in Lin’s imagination. Even as he read Ron Chernow’s book, he was beginning to think about who could fill the various roles, especially the Father of Our Country.

Lin had an early hunch that the leader of the Continental Army and first president would sing and rap in equal measure. He also knew that the performer would have to project greatness, an aura of command that surrounded Washington from his youth. And yet he couldn’t be a bloodless superman: The first glimpse of Washington, in “Right Hand Man,” shows him scrambling to stave off defeat, not coasting to glory.

Lin thought that someone like Common, the universally respected rapper from Chicago, might possess the stature and depth for the role. Another prospect was much nearer at hand. One night, during a performance of In the Heights, Lin and his costar Chris Jackson were standing just offstage, waiting for their cue.

“I got the next one,” Lin said. Meaning he had come up with his next idea. “Want to play George Washington?”

Like Lin, Chris was a history buff. They were both reading Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, around that time. (Lin was thinking of adapting the book until he heard that Steven Spielberg had gotten there first.) Chris was also a fan of the first president, whom he considers “the great American icon.” And so he said: “Sure.”

Still, Chris didn’t know how seriously to take it. Lin has lots of ideas; they come and go. But a few days later, Tommy visited the Heights cast.

“Hey, G-Dubs,” he said to Chris. “All right,” Chris replied. It was on. Chris Jackson had the makings of a Washington for reasons that anybody can see and hear. He has a tall, athletic stature that suits the finest horseman in all Virginia, the man that bullets knew better than to mess with. He also has a powerful R&B baritone, honed while singing in church choirs back in Cairo, Illinois. When Lin met Chris, he was so impressed that he rewrote the character of Benny in In the Heights to suit him better. “Chris is so sure of his instrument and has this kind of moral authority onstage,” says Lin. “He’s just fucking majestic.” But there are other, better reasons why Lin, and only Lin, would look to Chris for the role. Washington was taller, older, quieter, more reserved, and more experienced than Hamilton.

All of these things fit the relationship between Chris and Lin. By the time Heights came together, Chris had already spent four years in The Lion King, making him what he calls “a grizzled vet” of Broadway. Their friendship deepened when Chris joined Lin in Freestyle Love Supreme, which was a little like being in a band together and a little like sharing a foxhole. “At this point there is not a situation Chris and I have not found ourselves in at a performative level,” says Lin. “You know what someone is capable of when you’re thrown in front of a hundred drunk strangers in Edinburgh.”

Chris didn’t coast on any of this, conscientiousness being another trait he shares with the father of our country. He did his homework, poring over Chernow’s biography of George Washington, which he pronounces excellent. (Chernow returns the esteem: “That guy nailed it,” he told Lin after seeing Chris play Washington forthe first time, marveling at his gravitas, his presence.)

“The more I retain about the specifics of his life, it enriches my thought of the man,” said Chris. Knowing how buried in paperwork General Washington was during the war, he asked David Korins to add more books and papers and things to his desk. He even visited Mt. Vernon, and laid a wreath on Washington’s grave.

“It was unexpectedly heavy,” he says. “It was the utmost reminder. He lived, and was here, and he died. And he’s still here.”

Like Washington, Chris seems to lead out of instinct, not some will to rule. In rehearsal, he would sometimes “shh” the cast when people got too loud, but look at the ceiling while he did it, so nobody knew who was doing the shushing, or was being shushed. Before every show, he’s the one who rounds up his castmates and arranges them in a prayer circle beneath the stage.

“Hey, every team has a huddle, right?” he says of his preshow rite. “Every good one.”

Chris tells the actors, musicians, and backstage crew to hold hands and to breathe, and to breathe again. He then offers a little benediction: half locker-room pep talk, half petition to the Almighty.

“Let’s be sure that no matter what happens out there, I’ve got you,” he told the congregation one night. “Let’s agree that for the next two and a half hours, this is the most important thing we’ll do in our lives.” He closes with the hope that everybody–in the audience, on the stage, and in the orchestra pit–will leave the theater a better person than they walked in.

If his friend wanted to be a pastor, Lin thinks, he’d have a megachurch. For now, Chris is an actor trying to get used to the entrance applause he gets at some performances. Up to a point, the Hamilton audience is cheering someone they’ve been watching for nearly 20 years. But when he makes that brisk, bold entrance–a black man striding straight downstage, slamming his sword into a scabbard–the thought crosses your mind: Is Chris somehow getting all of these people to cheer for George Washington himself?