Hamilton’s coming to Australia and I should be thrilled. Instead I have a knot in my stomach

Moral dilemmas are assailing us from all angles at the moment. I had one some Sundays ago that I’ve been wrestling with ever since: how do you hold something that you adore when you learn that it is deeply and inescapably problematic? How do you reconcile its meaning in your life with its egregious, potentially harmful nature?

The Broadway musical Hamilton arrives in Australia in the new year. More than a show, it’s a phenomenon: attended by over two million people and awarded 11 Tonys, a Pulitzer and a Grammy. It was a watershed moment for representation, with a cast filled with people of colour that made nonsense of years of equivocation about colourblind casting through the sheer force of their brilliance. Historians have pointed out inaccuracies in the show’s depiction of events since its release, but this is art – and if Jason Donavan could be Joseph son of Jacob, we could make allowances for this groundbreaking piece, right? I was completely smitten and no road trip was spared me tunelessly singing to the soundtrack.

Related: Hamilton’s Australian producers say social distancing will be a ‘deal-breaker’

So why am I so conflicted now? When the Australian production was announced in 2019 I was over the moon, but now tickets are on sale and I’m honestly stumped. So much has changed in the last 12 months. Part of me is rapt to see a diverse Australian cast in a show of this scale – particularly given conversations in the industry – but another part of me wonders if the Hamilton-shaped space in my life should actually be there. Galvanised by the Black Lives Matter movement, this year has accelerated the evolution of my relationship to this type of material at a pace that my heart is struggling to keep up with. By the time I watched the Disney+ show a few weeks back, it hit every mark – the songs and performances are fantastic, unquestionably – but it just didn’t feel the same.

I fell in love with Hamilton without even seeing it. Most of the world was similarly in the dark until the original cast production premiered on Disney+ this year, shooting the soundtrack back to the top of the Billboard charts. As Obama said when introducing the cast at the White House: “It’s rare where a piece of art can remind us about what’s best in ourselves.” It is rarer still for a “historical” work to touch on issues of race. To see my kinfolk placed at the centre of our shared history in such a celebratory way felt incredible. When we’re taught the origin stories of our colonial nations, people like me appear in tragic footnotes of bondage and misery, if we are included at all. I was raised in the UK, but schools in Australia followed the same playbook.

So having the story of a brilliant, displaced Caribbean man excavated and retold to us as adults, in that way, by those people and at that moment, felt more than hopeful: it was edifying, maybe even redemptive. The US president was a super smart black man and we could believe that this was not an anomaly, but a continuation; that yes we can overcome the dark parts of our story, because we had in fact been doing it all along.

I love so much about Hamilton but the fact is it is deeply ahistorical, overselling Hamilton’s progressive leanings and glossing over his active role in upholding heinous and inhumane practices. George Washington’s farewell to government is an emotional crescendo in the show, with a song to match. I have sung this song so many times it is part of my story now. Yet it feels perverse in 2020: a black man singing the words of a person whose mouth was filled with dentures made of teeth yanked from the heads of his slaves. I know this now, but the song still made me cry like it was meant to – and that reaction left a knot in my stomach.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving this work. But learning that I had such huge blindspots left me feeling disappointed in myself, and in the writers. We can’t deny our responsibility to learn our history, but it feels like Hamilton snuck monuments for slavers into our homes, our car sing-alongs and our hearts, and used black talent to do it. I’m not sure how that will satisfy a contemporary Australian audience now; we’ve come too far together.

Perhaps I’ve just outgrown Hamilton. It will always be emblematic of an important time in my life, but representation isn’t enough for me anymore, and I don’t need false victories to be proud of my ancestors. I’ve also been lucky enough to have access to work by incredible Australian artists like Tony Allen and Steven Oliver, who tackle Australia’s history with wit and courage. The conversation has moved on.

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At the same time, I’m learning to layer new knowledge over old terrain in ways that are more illuminating than destructive. Our internal landscapes are fragile and precious, and I value their preservation as highly as I value the truth. It is OK for this process to look different from the movements we support in the outside world. I don’t plan to tear down any part of me; I can love this show and see what’s wrong with it at the same time. Oversimplifying got us into this mess; becoming comfortable with complexity will be a big part of getting through it. We are still developing these tools, so self-compassion is a necessity.

I still treasure these songs and the memories they soundtracked, and I’m learning to view my past self – in all my ignorance – with kindness. We are meant to outgrow things; that does not make them or us inherently bad. Nor does it mean that there isn’t a place for Hamilton; there are plenty of people in Australia who may still be cracked open and electrified by it.

Perhaps they will meet it at a point I have already passed on my journey, or perhaps their destination is different. Will I be buying a ticket? Not sure yet, it depends on who is performing. Whether I go or not, I’m still rooting for everybody black – and if I don’t go, it won’t be because I think going is wrong. I’m just more engrossed in the stories we’re uncovering right now. Ones that are messy and challenging, but full of real hope. That’s what I’m hungry for.

• Shantel Wetherall is a Melbourne-based writer and presenter who produces and hosts the Hey Aunty! podcast