Brian's NYC

In celebration of Ash's 24th Birthday, we took in the 2008 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, In The Heights. The show's creator, Lin Manuel Miranda (who also stars), began writing it in college at Wesleyan University, and it was picked up for Broadway after a successful run off-Broadway.

The first Broadway show Miranda saw was Rent, and the parallels between the two are plenty and obnoxious. The book is by no means perfect. That said, the show has so much heart, originality, talent, and unique messages, the overall experience is one of moving proportions.

We saw Miranda's understudy, which was unfortunate only for the name. The role's understudy, Javier Munoz, was competitent and quirky as Usnavi, a bodega owner off the 181st st. A train stop in Washington Heights. He caters to a cast of regulars, including Benny (Christopher Jackson, a talented and believable leading man), Kevin and Camilla (Carlos Gomez and Priscilla Lopez), parents to Nina, a student returning from her first year at Stanford, Vanessa (Karen Olivo) and her coworkers at a neighboring salon (the hilarious diva Andrea Burns and a squeaky Janet Dacal). Usnavi yearns for Vanessa, while Benny and Nina have a budding romance, much to the chagrin of Nina's parents. Nina selfishly declines her parents generosity to allow her to stay at Stanford for most of the show, while Abuela Claudia (played passionately and flawlessly by Olga Merediz) wins the lottery, but experiences a predictable plot twist which may inhibit her from reaping the benefits of the winnings. The best part of the show for me was Sonny, Usnavi's younger cousin who helps run the bodega (Robin de Jesus). His character hilariously satirizes the stereotypes of a Washington Heights teen. Add about 10 stellar pop and hip hop performers in the ensemble, and you have yourself an amazingly poignant, modern, moving piece of theater?

So what was there to dislike? Well, its predictability, for one. I felt like I was 20 minutes ahead of the show at all times. Beyond the poor writing, a few of the casting choices threw me off, mostly because of the ages of the performers. An actress who looks 30 is playing 19, and gets together with a guy who also looks 30 but his age is never revealed? An actress who looks 19 is playing 19, and gets together with an actor who looks 30 but we're not sure how old he is supposed to be? Inconsistent and confusing, it seems as though there were some sort of obligations that needed to be upheld in the transfer from Off-Broadway.

The book is the weakest part of the show. Inconsistencies with subject matter such as references to the elevated trains that don't exist in Washington Heights and the sea at Stanford (at least 45 minutes away! And nobody uses 'weekend' as a verb and talks about their cabins, aka mansions, in tahoe!). It was painfully apparent that this was a first time attempt at playwrighting.

A few direction choices left me unsatisfied as well. During numbers that served as character development, actors are blocked to cross down center and sing in a tight spot. This is a great idea to further the appreciation of the script and story (and we already know what I think of the book), but the actors seemed to have been directed to be so subdued that they lessened the theatrical power of the moment. It is a prime example of something that should have been addressed as the show made its leap from 37 Arts, a tiny Off-Broadway developmental venue, to a huge theater such as the Richard Rogers, and wasn't. And the heightened emotional moments of Act II were blown over and passed through, preventing the show from having the same emotional impact as the one whose structure it was seemingly designed after (Rent). It had so much potential to be much more moving and poignant than it actually was. It has so much going for it, but unfortunate shortcomings such as its book and direction keeps it from reaching its full potential. And now, because it has won the Tony Award and achieved its stride on Broadway, it is set in stone and never will.

Um, but I liked it overall.