Op-Ed: "In the Heights" Has Livelier Sights and Sounds Than Story

Arielle Jacobs plays Nina

In the Heights (at 5th Avenue Theatre through October 17) in eight words or less: Musical theater meets Step Up 2 the Streets.

This 2008 Tony Award-winner for Best Musical, set in a predominantly Latino immigrant neighborhood of Manhattan, is a grab-bag of theater tropes set to a rap score and street dance.

(Disclosure: I saw a "preview" version of the show on Tuesday night, and typically you're supposed to wait for opening night to review a production. On the other hand, I paid $122.50 for the seats, so I'm going to add my two cents. [Ed.: We didn't send Seth, either, he went on his own. Isn't that something? He just likes musicals.])

You get some of the best aspects of musical theater with this production, and some of the worst. Like many musicals, you've got fantastic singing, touching moments, and lots of attractive people dancing. But, like many musicals, you've got jokes you can see coming a mile away, shallow characters, and a plot as predictable as yesterday's Mariners score.

That plot! Nina, the precocious daughter of Hard Working Parents, is back from a difficult freshman year at Stanford. (The actress playing Nina, Arielle Jacobs, had no such trouble, graduating Magna Cum Laude from NYU.) Nina has lost her scholarship and needs a way to pay for school. Meanwhile, Usnavi, the wise-cracking young owner of the neighborhood bodega, who Tragically Lost His Parents, is trying to keep his business afloat.

Wending in and out of the story are such recognizable figures as The Aspiring Starlet (Usnavi's love interest), the Sassy Town Gossip, the Goofy Sidekick, the Dumb Blonde, the Guy From the Wrong Side of the Tracks (who has the hots for Nina), the Roughneck With the Heart of Gold, and on, and on, and on. The story is about as imaginative as a box of hair.

So why did In the Heights win Best Musical?

For one thing, Lin-Manuel Miranda, an improvisational dancer/rapper who wrote the music, starred as Usnavi in the original production. Seattle audiences get Joseph Morales, a musical-theater performer who lacks Miranda's rap and improvisational background. It shows.

Luckily we still get Miranda's music, an inventive blend of showtunes and rap. And the street dance, which is different than anything you've seen on the 5th Avenue stage. Even the plodding plot can't hold back the exuberance of the music and the movement.

I find myself saying this a lot, but here we go again: If you like musical theater, you will have a good time. I liked it, so did my seventh-grade niece. But I'd no more recommend In the Heights to a musical theater skeptic than I would tri-tip to a vegan.