Downstage left on the set of In The Heights is the entrance to the 181st Street stop on the A Train. When the show was over I figured I had just enough time to hop the train and get up there before all the people I had just seen disappeared. And as long as I was standing anyway – along with the entire balcony section – I figured I could get out of the theater and be up there in no time. I think the rest of the people in the balcony had the same idea because when this show is over E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y stands up to cheer.
The first thing that grabs you in this show is its creator. When Lin-Manuel Miranda leaps out onto the stage, the audience cheers. They really do. Then he starts rapping, and about three or four minutes into this I remembered that I normally don’t like rap. It is a) boring b) loud and unintelligible and c) an excuse for young men to wear some seriously ugly clothes cinched low enough for me to see their underwear. But I liked this. Miranda reaches out and grabs at whatever part of yourself you forgot to close down. Whatever it is he does, whatever little magic sparklies he has under his hat – who knows what it is – I forgot all about not liking rap.
When Miranda tells us the story of his neighborhood, he looks out at the orchestra section and then he looks up at the balcony. He looks up there as if he were looking for someone from the Heights, because that's where they would be sitting. Not only does he look up – he looks all the way up to the top row. I know that because my seat was in the top row, just this side of the back wall.
Once he's shown us his neighborhood, he does a very smart thing: he gives the story away to other characters. He gives it away, specifically, to the women. The neighborhood is being gentrified. Some want to stay, some to go, and everyone wants a better life, but not at the expense of the relationships they have. One woman has quit college; another is desperate for a place to live downtown; his grandmother, Abuela Claudia, is looking at the end of her life; the proprietor of the beauty salon is fighting to keep her dignity as she is forced out of the community by high rents; the woman who owns the car service with her husband is struggling to keep her family and their business intact. The men are by no means incidental, but it is the women who push the story forward.
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