Alright, review time! But this one is a little unusual, because it's not a book review or a movie review. Let's start at the beginning.
You ever hear of Lin-Manuel Miranda? In musical theatre circles, he's kinda a big deal. He's the genius behind Hamilton, the presidential hip-hop musical about US founding father Alexander Hamilton that swept the Tonys (winning 11 of 16 awards, including "Best Musical") but before that, who had heard of him?
Who, save for the people who watched his amazing debut musical, In the Heights?
So, the story: short verion, Uznavi lives in Washington heights, New York, struggling day-to-day to keep his corner shop open with the coffee and lotto sales from the neighborhood's inhabitants. From the ancient Abuela to college-bound Nina, everybody is either an immigrant or the child of immigrants and everybody is trying so hard just to make ends meet.
and I haven't even got to the songs yet! I'm listening to the Original Broadway Recording as a type this, and to be honest that's probably the best way to enjoy it; in the live show a lot of the lyrics have a tendency to get lost in the ensemble pieces. Nonetheless, the music is still beautiful. The songs will just stick in your head, despite the somewhat depressing nature of their reality (continually in debt, scraping a living day-to-day) the songs they sing are so upbeat and catchy. Well, for the most part: from the title-song "In the Heights" which reveals the workaday nature of 181st Street in which the people are nonetheless happy, to the carefree festival-feel of "Carnival Del Barrio" all the music is a Spanish-English mashup with hip-hop rhythm and style. But for the best songs, you've gotta look a little later. "Alabanza" is a real hard-hitter, it's a real switch in the mood from the whole first act which feels hopeful despite any setbacks the characters might face. And it brought tears to my eyes when I watched it onstage at the King's Cross Theatre.
Let's talk about the theatre for a moment. The London show has a lot to recommend it, from the spacious and stylish bar area where you can get a drink (albeit at London prices) before the show to the small, intimate feel of the stage itself. Set in the middle of the floor with seating along either side, it's an interesting set-up, and In the Heights uses the space they're given brilliantly, with chorus singers frequently leaping from stage to steps beside the seating to dance and sing alongside the watching audience (and if I can recommend a seat if you like getting up close to the actors: go for E13 on platform 1, you'll be right next to them half the time). Props to the guy during "Carnival Del Barrio" who pretended to chat with all of us nearby, it's nice touches like that which really immerse you in the story and give you something to remember.
And it's the people who really get you leaving with those memories. Because at it's heart, In the Heights isn't so much about overarching story - there's a main plot in there somewhere, but it's secondary to the individual characters themselves: Uznavi, whose parents moved from the Dominican Republic and left him a little cash and a corner store that he still runs to this day, and who dreams of one day being able to return to the home country that he's never seen; Kevin and Camila, the Rosarios who own a taxi company but are struggling to make ends meet with mounting costs of sending daughter Nina to college; Carla and Daniela, who work in the salon and trade gossip, whilst their colleague - and object of Uznavi's nervous affections - Vanessa, dreams of escaping the Barrio and moving somewhere downtown. These and a few more have their own stories going on, above the through-line of serious plot we're more interested in relationships, jobs, gossip, money troubles and the general soap-opera affairs of a single street.
In the Heights is about broken dreams and escapism, only it's not really. It's too upbeat for that, it's too happy to be breaking hearts and failing. And while it deals with failure, it doesn't dwell on it and instead it turns to what the characters have, rather than what they lack. You know that it's going to end with the guy getting the girl, everything is going to turn out fine. But it's not going to turn out exactly how the characters envision, and that's where the drama and plot really come from; not from dreams shattered, but from the bright lights and carnival music of dreams realised that you hadn't previously noticed you were dreaming about. And in the meantime, trouble happens, there's tragedy, but the Barrio continues. The drama is a small and local drama, and honestly it's nice to see something like this on a small scale, something that feels about sized to the drama it's representing. It just seems to fit perfectly into the space it was given, we're not looking at larger-than-life characters or an amazing, life-changing story. Sometimes it's nice to just see people being people, and it's weird to see a musical that does it so well, but it works.
In The Heights: It's small-scale but it works perfectly.
Adieu!
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