Teach Us How to Say Goodbye
Chris Jackson’s Last Day in “Hamilton” in End Times
On Christopher Jackson’s last day performing as General and President George Washington in the cast of “Hamilton” on Broadway, I indulge in this:
This album and show was (were?) my lifeline for all of 2016, a very hard year. I listened to almost nothing else, listened to parts of it almost every day. I knew how lucky I was to see the show live.
On Tuesday morning, November 8, the last of the hours Before, my son and I dressed in the dark, listening to “Non-Stop,” a song that combines all the enthusiasm and triumph and power and seeds of conflict of the first act, and we set out to vote when the polls opened at 6:00.
I haven’t been able to listen to any of the album since, too afraid that the feelings it always brings up will take on a new cast and become too much to bear.
The focus for me — for my inability to bring myself to listen — is a song called “One Last Time,” in which Washington explains that he is stepping down as president to avoid any tendency, or appearance thereof, of monarchy, and to demonstrate to the republic that it will survive and flourish with changes in leadership. He asks that his missteps be forgiven, and that he be able to enjoy the end of his life “at home, in this nation we’ve made.”
He implores Hamilton, as writer, to “relax, have a drink with me one last time,” and then to get on with the business of getting over petty squabbles and power-grabs, and of helping Washington deliver a final address to “teach [Americans] how to say goodbye” not as a sign of weakness, but in a way that will show the world how strong the republic is. He says he wants to “talk about neutrality” and partisan fighting. The song is about, among other things, the sacrifice of an individual leader for the stability, and the good, of the nation.
Sung (mostly) by Christopher Jackson, and ending with excerpts from Washington’s actual “goodbye,” it’s one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard. The thought of hearing it again has brought me to tears many times in these few days After, because the idea of “teach[ing] [us] how to say goodbye” and of taking stock of our surroundings “one last time” has taken on such a different and sinister meaning. And so has the idea of what will — and won’t — outlive our leaders after the incoming administration is in place. We are already seeing this in even more violence, hate speech, and hate crimes all over the country.
Today is Chris Jackson’s last day playing Washington in “Hamilton;” he was forceful and believable and is said to be the even-keeled moral center of the cast. I wouldn’t know how to say goodbye to him, despite his having tried, in character, to teach us for so long.
I know it sounds, and it is in a way, absurd to lament the departure of a Broadway actor and singer from a show, when we are facing big, life-threatening concerns. But in these, the days After, it’s also hard to think of today as his one last time.
After a back-and-forth to convince Hamilton that stepping down as president will fortify the stability of the republic, Washington sings:
“If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on
It outlives me when I’m gone
Like the scripture says:
‘Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.’They’ll be safe in the nation we’ve made
I wanna sit under my own vine and fig tree
A moment alone in the shade
At home in this nation we’ve made
One last time
Washington goes on to speak, at first with Hamilton giving him his voice, and then sings with reverence, and ending on a note that goes on forever:
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. I shall also carry with me
The hope
That my country will
View them with indulgence;
And that
After forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal
The faults of incompetent abilities will be
Consigned to oblivion, as I myself must soon be to the mansions of restI anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws
Under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust
Of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”
