TODAY: "In The Heights" "Jack Goes Boating" "Jackie With a 'Z'"
"In The Heights" is both a completely traditional musical (it's all about people with dreams), and a contemporary musical (lots of reliance on hip-hop beats and Latin rhythms). The problem with it is, that by combining the two types, they had too much musical and need to cut a bit of it. I had a good time at "In The Heights" (which tells the story of an owner of a bodega in Washington Heights who dreams of going back to the Dominican Republic), but the problems I had with it were exactly the problems I didn't have with "Jersey Boys." That show was so economically told that it fairly thundered along. "In The Heights" needs to get on the express.
Lin-Manuel Miranda conceived the show, wrote the music and lyrics, and is the star, as well. Talk about carrying the weight of a show on your shoulders... But Miranda has the chops to pull it off, especially when he's on stage. This guy commands your attention from the show's first moments, but knows when to let the focus off of him and let it shine on some of the other fine performers (especially Robin de Jesus as Sonny and Eliseo Roman as "the piragua guy." ["piragua" being a sno-cone like treat]). If only he could learn to cut 20 minutes from the show. And he should, because "In The Heights" has a lot going for it, mostly a great big heart. They get to their message (which is the same as "The Wizard of Oz" -- happiness isn't somewhere over the rainbow, it's right in your own backyard) in a sweet, sincere -- but hot -- fashion. Fortunately for the backers, the audience seemed to love it and the house was almost completely full.
"Jack Goes Boating" stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is clearly the big draw. Unlike Julianne Moore, Julia Roberts or Denzel Washington, who came to New York with high expectations but failed to deliver, Hoffman pulls off his role with an easy comic aplomb. His Jack is a big lumbering galoot who likes good bud and simple living. It's a terrific comic performance.
What surprised me was how good the rest of the cast was, how balanced they were as a comic (and dramatic) team. Beth Cole, John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega all take this concoction (by playwright Bob Glaudini and director Peter Dubois) and serve it up with tremendous skill.
The play covers some rough territory, but at its heart it has the same "positive vibe" that Jack seeks from the reggae music he loves. It's the dramatic version of a piece of Sourpatch Kids candy -- on your first bite you say "wow, what is this?," but as you chew you discover the sweetness at the core.
(SPOILER WARNING: I give away a surprise from the show in the last line of this paragraph.)
"Jackie With a 'Z'," on the other hand, is sour on the outside and bitter on the inside. Its star and namesake, comic actress Jackie Hoffman, hates children, cops to being racist -- and still delivers laugh talking about the brush with cancer that kept her from completing her turn in "Regrets Only," the Paul Rudnick play at MTC that I enjoyed so much in December. I mean, any show that ends with a singing uterus hand puppet.
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