Reviewed by David Spencer
[Most of what follows is taken from my
original review of the off-Broadway production—with slight
modifications specific to the Broadway transfer.]
No one ever mounts a
show, let
alone a musical, this big off-Broadway—not these days—unless the
ultimate goal
is to move midtown to a Broadway house. (Or perhaps, if you have some
wildly
creative financial model, to make such a splash as a novelty that life
on tour
and internationally is a good bet, kind of as it was for the
Yeston-Kopit Phantom.) So the reaction of
the press is
pretty much everything. And when I saw In the Heights at a press preview at 37
Arts,
what struck me most profoundly
was that it could have gone either way. And that's because my own
opinion could
have gone either way. And indeed, many of the original reviews seem to
have gone both
ways.
But the show did transfer, the gambit worked, and now it's on Broadway,
at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
To make sense out of that, consider that In the Heights is perhaps the first genuine Hispanic musical—certainly the first to be given any kind of mainstream attention and the first to be written by Hispanics in a way that pays respectful homage to traditional musical theatre craft even if it doesn't always play by the principles. This panorama of life in a present-day Washington Heights neighborhood, taking place over a Fourth of July weekend, uses its regard for tradition to "buy permission" for use of authentic Latino and hip-hop stylings—not usually the province of musical theatre, owing to the limited emotional colors that can be expressed to hard backbeats. (I'm not trying to be glib, I mean that sincerely; most pop music of this nature concentrates on a single primary color, which can be viscerally exciting, even cathartic in the right place—but doesn't allow room for character definition or story progression.) Yet composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda is a new wave theatre baby who isn't out to reinvent the wheel, just to provide a different set of spokes; he understands the need to provide the pastel colors by way of contrast; and with a foot in musical theatre language that he clearly loves, and another in the locution of an ethnicity that would be a severe challenge, if not impossible, for an outsider to tackle with authentic insider understanding and affinity, he manages to do what Burt Bacharach (with Promises, Promises) did for pop in the late 60s, what Stephen Schwartz (with Pippin) did for rock in the 70s, and what David Yazbek (with The Full Monty) did for jazz and fusion on the cusp of the new millennium: he manages to put a genuine (rather than imitated) pop vocabulary through a theatrical filter, to create a sound that seems like it came straight from an iTunes download, but is in fact an extremely canny hybrid.
The energy generated by this is instrumental in keeping the libretto of Quiara Alegria Hudes moving along fleetly, no mean feat, as hers is a gestalt musical about a community, with several interwoven storylines, none really primary (though a slight bit of extra weight is thrown onto the character of Usnavi, our guide through the neighborhood, engagingly played, not incidentally, by the composer-lyricist, Mr. Miranda). Gestalt musicals are a tough sell: musicals tend to want to follow a single main character's quest as the motor, for if there are multiple equal storylines, the natural compression of the form works against them taking much emotional hold, and structure seems to sprawl...unless one can tap into the A Chorus Line vibe, where somehow the individual agendas can coalesce into a unifying single desire. That's when a gestalt musical has a fighting chance...and by dint of its sweetness, and most of its main characters wanting something better for others, for the sense of community, as much as or more than for themselves, In the Heights does.
So we
can get behind convenience store owner Usnavi's concern over his nephew
Sonny's
(Robin de Jesus)
well being, even as he tends his crush on Vanessa (Karen Olivio); and the 50ish
Camilla and
Kevin (Priscilla Lopez and Carlos Gomez) worried about
continuing to pay for the college
educaton of their daughter Nina (Mandy Gonzalez) even as Nina worries
about
staying on to help their hired car business and budding romance with
dad's
black employee Benny (Christopher Jackson). And then there's
the neighborhood grandma,
Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz) and the neighborhood
spitfire, Daniela (Andrea Burns). Almost roles are
played
winningly, sung thrillingly and danced (choreography: Andy
Blankenbuehler) with infectious
energy and
skill. All directed smoothly by Thomas Kail. (The "almost" comes with the re-casting of
Kevin. Off-Broadway it had been John Hererra, and the father figure he presented had a
very strong sense of maleness—I don't mean in the sexual sense, though
certainly that component upped the ante on the stage relationship with
Priscilla Lopez as his Camilla. I mean in the sense of macho proud
breadwinner and provider, facing an inability to provide as he used to.
That pride informs the whole arc of Kevin's character, and Hererra
employed a bold and powerful singing voice to match. According to an
insider, his replacement by Carlos Gomez is an attempt on the part of
the producers to make the show even more attractive to potential Latino
audiences by featuring someone they consider a star in a lead role. And
indeed, Mr. Gomez' IMDB.com profile shows a wealth of impressive film
and TV credits, and yes, he holds his own on stage. Sort of. But his
persona is a milder one, and his singing voice is almost negligible. It
feels like a competent understudy performance, the gain is not worth
the loss and I can't help feeling it's a miscalculation that won't pay
off, though the damage to the piece itself is slight.)
None of the virtues make In the Heights a great musical, or one destined for a long and important berth in the literature. It just doesn't feel like that kind of breakthrough. But something about it vibrates sympathetically with now, with a current audience hunger, even with a specific audience hunger: it reaches out to its own in a way that few theatrical ventures do, which can only widen the general audience and inspire other budding Hispanic artists to consider theatre, and musicals in particular, as an outlet—and consider doing it right.
Alongside The Color Purple working another ethnic neighborhood in need, it can do nothing but good...