Playwright: music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Quiara AlegrÃa Hudes. At: Broadway In Chicago at the Cadillac Palace, 151 W. Randolph. Phone: 800-775-2000; $18-$90. Runs through: Jan. 3
In 1968, there was Hair, perhaps the first use of the term “tribal” to describe an American musical. And A Chorus Line might also be included under that label. But ensemble-based librettos are rare in a theatrical genre typically comprised of one or two solitary star-players flanked by a squad of subordinates. To be sure, the various sub-plots in Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara AlegrÃa Hudes’ portrait of an urban oasis introduce us to a number of individuals facing decisions common to all immigrant communities, but seldom are they seen onstage alone. Instead, the stage picture is kept in constant motion by various denizens going about their business—orchestrated movement inspired less by neo-Brechtian artistic concepts than by the “eyes on the street” ethos governing the ambience of such neighborhoods.
What swept the 2007-2008 awards for this innovative tour of the subculture collectively known as “Hispanic” to outsiders, but actually a mix of several nationalities, wasn’t its literary merits, however—the plays of Elmer Rice, Sidney Kingsley and William Saroyan cover similar territory—but a score of uniformly vibrant music cobbling together hip-hop rhythms with salsa and meringue, its arrangements lush with conga drums and mariachi trumpets, where every note comprises an anthem invoking the stubborn optimism of a population for generations rooted in sunshine. Nowhere is this defiance more vividly illustrated than in a disco—imagine a street dance-based version of the gymnasium scene in West Side Story—where an electrical power failure suddenly plunges the occupants into darkness, only to be promptly re-illuminated by dozens of cell-phone LEDs.
Jaded playgoers may accuse In The Heights of sentimentality—everyone winds up contented, if not precisely happy. And by the time the savvy Daniela from the salon de belleza leads her peers in a jubilant “Carnaval del Barrio,” the evening has veered closer to pageantry than to stark realism. But the company led by Kyle Beltran as Usnavi, the bodega proprietor who acts as our guide (and whose name encapsulates the assimilation process more vividly than a dozen scholarly dissertations), welcomes us to the ‘hood with warm smiles and open arms guaranteeing all but the most anglophilic naysayers a walk through one of Manhattan’s hidden realms to leave us awash in exhilaration like midwesterners have not experienced since the last tour of Oba Oba came through town.