Before the musical juggernaut of Hamilton, the immensely talented Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote In the Heights during his student days at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University. It took years of rewrites and a new book author Quiara Alegría Hudes to complete his tribute to Washington Heights, with stop-overs on off-Broadway, but when the musical opened on Broadway in 2008, this rap sensation flattened all competition.
Nominated for 13 Tony Awards, it won four including Best Musical and Best Original Score. Miranda was also nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of lead character Usnavi.
The musical, while a bit light in the book, is as spirited and ebullient as one could hope for. William Carlos Angulo’s angular and sexy dances never stop moving, a perpetual mobile of curves, dips, and fleet feet. It seems everyone on 181st Street knows how and when to move. Just walking across the stage, they have a bounce and rhythm that is infectious.
Of course, that’s the point of this musical, that celebrates community and cohesiveness, along with its dreams and aspirations of a better life if only a little money would come their way, or the nagging electric company would grand them a little more time to pay their bills, or if they could only go back to their young days in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic. The people of the barrio want out. Their dreams aren’t big or impossible, just thwarted.
Now on stage at the Hobby Center courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars, this is a sunny musical, very optimistic despite the melodramatic spike strips thrown in its way by the author. Nina (Jordan Leal) has dropped out of Stanford because she couldn’t keep up her studies while holding down two jobs to pay her tuition; Usnavi (Daniel L. Melo) dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic; hair salon owner Daniela (Carisa Gonzalez) has to move out due to gentrification; salon worker Vanessa (Alysia Velez) wants to live in Greenwich Village to become a designer.
Nina’s parents Kevin and Camila (Ceasar F. Barajas and Rosarito Rodríguez-González) who own the neighborhood car service must decide if they want to sell their beloved store to pay for Nina’s continued education; and non-Hispanic Benny (Lamont Walker II), in love with Nina but forbidden to see her by her overprotective father, connects with his obvious soulmate like a bus-and-truck Romeo.
Holding the neighborhood together is Abuela Claudia (Yassmin Alers), who has raised Usnavi from a child since his parents died. She is the soul of Washington Heights. For all her hard-scrabble existence, she exudes patience and faith (“Paciencia Y Fe,” one of the show’s most haunting numbers.) Those qualities pay off handsomely, of course, when she wins the lottery.
While the score is replete with salsa and Latin dance rhythms, it’s rap that’s the star of the show. (Like in Hamilton, Miranda’s genius verges on W.S. Gilbert’s tongue-twisting patter to set our ears.) However, the giant space of Sarofim Hall at the Hobby Center eats sound for breakfast, and most of Miranda’s clever witticisms and Sondheim-esque internal rhymes get obscured or muddled. All we hear is someone rapping very fast. We get the gist of it, if not the sheer pleasure of Miranda’s splendid wordplay.
The cast is excellent down the ranks as they sing their throats out and dance their legs off. It’s quite impressive. But then, so is the show. A slice of New York that’s not often shown – not on Broadway at least, and not in a musical – In the Heights, for all its Latin innovation and rap-infused score, is basically a type of ‘50s musical. In shape and style it pays homage to those well-made shows by Frank Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Berlin and Porter.
It is designed to please. And please it does, with abundance and goodwill and a feisty snap attitude that never dates. Listen to the ovation at the end. The audience gets it. They know a good show when they see it.
In the Heights continues through June 1 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-558-8877 or visit tuts.org. $45-$165.
