In the Heights review – Broadway behemoth’s scrappiest show is full of heart

Before Hamilton smashed Broadway records – and made composer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda not just a Pulitzer prize winner, but also this generation’s musical theatre household name; before Moana and Encanto, there was his scrappier rise to fame.

His road to domination was marked with his signature earnestness and hip-hop influences from the jump, but they tended to live in smaller, more deeply-felt stories.

There was a good-natured, deeply messy musical adaptation of the cheerleading film franchise Bring it On; new songs for the 1977 musical Working; and new Spanish translations for a 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story. And there was, of course, In The Heights.

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Back in the mid-2000s, Miranda still had to hustle: this YouTube relic, in which he lovingly references Disney’s High School Musical 2, is a brilliant example of both his unquenchable enthusiasm and his early ambition. And it worked: In The Heights, his first Broadway show, enjoyed a three-year Broadway run. It also netted 13 Tony nominations and four wins – before the inevitable film adaptation in 2021. While it might go down in history as the show Miranda was vacationing from when he had the idea for Hamilton – or the show he had on Broadway when he tested early material from Hamilton to sceptical laughter turned applause at the White House poetry jam in 2009 – there’s a lot to like in this sweeter, shaggier early work.

This current production at Sydney Opera House, directed by Luke Joslin, is a celebratory return. Born at the intimate Hayes Theatre in 2018, followed by a transfer to the Opera House’s much-larger concert hall in 2019, it’s now settled into the downstairs Drama Theatre. Miranda’s form of accessible hip-hop, laced with pop and remixed with musical theatre devices like motif, modulation, call-and-response and ensemble-led harmonies, are all on display in this show.

Here, it’s paired with bright Latin sounds and a narrative eye towards rock operas.

The slice-of-life story shows us a few days in one neighbourhood, where Usnavi (the fantastic Ryan Gonzalez, who first played the role in 2018) runs a small bodega and watches his loved ones’ lives unfold, dreaming equally of returning to the Dominican Republic and finally asking out Vanessa (the dazzling Olivia Vásquez, also reprising her role).

There’s achieving, new college student Nina (Olivia Dacal, a classical musician with the voice of an angel and niece of original In the Heights Broadway cast member Janet Dacal, who also appears in this production), and Benny (Barry Conrad), who works for her father’s car service company and loves her.

The cast connect, commiserate, argue, celebrate and grieve together through a blackout, a local lottery win, and the oppressive summer heat – while beloved community elder Abuela Claudia (Lena Cruz) takes care of everyone.

This production, deeply loving and well-lived-in now, still can’t quite fix the staid and perfunctory dialogue-driven scenes (thankfully short, in a mostly sung-through show). It also lulls when transitioning from number to number – a frequent issue since it first hit a Sydney stage. Between songs, there’s an awkward, flattening creep.

Still, this production reaches inside its chest, pulls out its beating heart, and shows it to you. That’s hard to resist. It understands that the secret to making a hit is by loving the characters as much as Miranda clearly did when he created them, building character-driven songs to sit alongside plot milestones so we never divorce the action from the human emotions driving it. This production dials consistently into the personal, letting big feelings absorb the whole stage.

It also understands how to land the big moments. Its sudden, heartbreaking twist, and the big-sky-dreaming, all-in act one number 96,000 are disarming. Cruz’s Abuela Claudia is packed with charm, which is vital, and the show’s funniest characters – Usnavi’s younger cousin Sonny (Steve Costi), daffy salon worker Carla (Tamara Foglia Castañeda), and the local piragua guy (Richard Valdez) are given plenty of room to vamp.

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Amy Campbell’s choreography – both astonishing and too-cramped here on this new stage – keeps the energy up, and Victoria Falconer, new to the production as musical director, matches that with brash and boisterousness. The sound, unfortunately, is not always clear – but you can feel this show in your bones. It’s very good at winning you over.

Next week, Hamilton returns to Sydney. Audiences can see both of Miranda’s shows over the next six weeks and it’s well worth doing. Hamilton is objectively the bigger, slicker show, but In The Heights is lovelier: it bursts with early promise and is nakedly emotional. Call it a study of an artist on the rise. It’s an enjoyable one.

• In the Heights runs at Sydney Opera House until 25 August