'IN THE HEIGHTS' Tony Winning Slice Of Life Musical
(Photo by Janet Macoska 2010)
I promise you that I wanted to love IN THE HEIGHTS. A few minutes into the show, I would have settled for just not disliking it. I am here to report that despite winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, IN THE HEIGHTS never reaches the heights it sets out for.
The show takes places on a street 'in the heights' of New York, and is inhabited by the four businesses on the street. There is a car service, a beauty shop, a bodega (a 7-11 type store) and an apartment building.
Having a book by Quiara Alegria Hudes and music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creators of this musical planned to get their dramatic tension from the car service owner's daughter needing to drop out of college due to lack of funds, and down the block at the bodega, the owner Usnavi, has reaped the percentage an owner gets for selling a winning lotto ticket (in this case I believe he won something to the effect of $96,000.) The winning lotto ticket, it is soon revealed, has been won by the old lady who runs the apartment building.
The musicologists start off the show with the lead character Usnavi, doing an interesting and rather exciting rap song. I was all set for a show fresh, new and daring. Within moments IN THE HEIGHTS seemed to lose its courage and turned into a mish mosh of Broadway songs with an occasional rap song or rap moments thrown in. The songs just weren't very good. They did indeed pay strict service to the book, which in this case, was not a favor.
The biggest problem with IN THE HEIGHTS is that, it never makes us care very much about the people living on this street.
One would gather that IN THE HEIGHTS started out with great ambitions. They seemed to meld West Side Story with Avenue Q and perhaps INTO THE WOODS. Then they would show us a neighborhood and some rhythms not usually heard in a conventional musical. Choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, disappoints most. On a great set, designed by the champion of the performance, Anna Louizos, Mr. Blankenbuehler could have gone anywhere and done almost anything with his dances. Like the rest of IN THE HEIGHTS he never thrills us, never surprises us.
IN THE HEIGHTS is full of performers with great energy who so very much want to please us. In the 'lead' role of Usnavi, director Thomas Kail seems to have lost perspective as he has so many times during this show. Kyle Beltran can dance, act, sing and rap. He does not have the charisma, the sex appeal so vital to this central role. A very talented, seemingly nice young man, Mr. Beltran lacks what it needed to make this role click. He is in a show that tries very hard, but rarely clicks at all.
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