BROADWAY MUSICAL COMES TO ST. MARIE’S

                                                   Full cast of In the Heights at St Mary's School, March 6, 2021
 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted March 7, 2021 to BD)

St. Mary’s School has a long history of staging popular musicals, and even opera. And this year’s choice of Lee-Manuel Miranda’s ‘In the Heights’ by the School’s theatre arts teacher and show director, Jackie Kasuku, was in keeping with that ambitious tradition.

Miranda was swept to international renown in 2015 when his hip-hop musical, ‘Hamilton’, about one of America’s Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, became a smash hit on Broadway and beyond. But Miranda had actually made his musical breakthrough a few years earlier with his creation of ‘In the Heights’ in 2008.

                                                                                         Usvani In the Heights

His semi-autobiographical story (co-composed with Quiara Alegria Hudes) about the struggles and hopes of first - and second - generation Latino immigrants won him a Tony award for its dazzling dynamism and stunning musical mix of hip-hop, rap, R&B, soul, salsa and syncopated Latino rhythms.

St. Mary’s production of ‘Heights’ had a lot of that same earthy energy and musical flare that was in the original show. The one big problem of this production was the acoustics in the school’s performance space which made much of the storyline inaudible. And what compounded the audibility issue was Miranda’s hip-hop lyrics which were fast and snappy and highly stylized.

          Nina at the Salon Inthe Heights

The cast weren’t the problem. On the contrary, every one of them, including the youngest (from age 10) up to the eldest (age 18) enhanced a key element of the script, that of the Washington Heights community of working-class Latino immigrants.

Director Kasuku managed to assemble up to 40 students in the cast, all of whom were quick on choreography and clearly keen to be in the multiple street scenes and party dance times.

Ms. Kasuku also created a charming street set design that not only featured the Rosario’s Car and Limo Service, Usnavi’s coffee shop, Daniela’s hair salon, and even the matriarch Abuda Claudia’s front door. There was even a space where we could see the tenement fire escape where lovers met in the moonlight.

Washington Heights is a Latino ‘hood where Spanish-speaking immigrants from Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and even Paraguay reside and share their dreams, hopes and struggles.

One struggle belongs to Nina Rosario (Joy Mungai), the first person from the hood to go to university. But she’s come home having dropped out of Stanford without telling her parents, Kevin (Tula Muumbi) and Camile (Abigail Kibe), who naturally freak out. They’re even more distressed at her choice of Benny (Allan Karundo) as a boyfriend. But all that gets sorted after Camile puts her foot down and agrees to her spouse selling his Car service so Nina can go back to school.

One of the most captivating songs of the musical was ‘96,000’ since that is the sum Abuda Claudia wins with her lottery ticket. It gets everybody wondering what would they do if they had 96,000 of their own. The beloved old woman doesn’t stick around to spend it all. But as she leaves it with Usnavi (Tinashe Mpariwa), the orphan who she’s cared for and who in turn has looked after her, he plans to use it to go back home to Dominican Republic.

But in the end, once his sweetheart Vanessa (Michelle Kituku) implores him to stay, he realizes he is already at ‘Home’ (which coincidentally is the last song of the show), and all ends on a high note.

The one big challenge to ‘In the Heights’, apart from problematic acoustics was the pace at which the musical unfolded. One has to admire the way the cast kept up the speed, never faltering, (apart from a few songs sung slightly off key). Nonetheless, the rapid clip at which the whole production moved meant that there was more synchronized movement but less passion or actors’ emotions expressed.

The one exception was the brilliant outburst by Mama Nina, Camile whose style of negotiating came across in both her body language and her animated talk.

In the end, one has to be impressed with a school production as ambitious and well-conceived as Lee-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece come to Kenya. But there are still issues theatre groups need to professionalize. They including keeping time, preparing programs and allowing the audience to know who is playing what character, who’s produced and directed the whole show.

When the public is told a show starts at 12:30pm, one doesn’t expect musicians, however magnificent their performances will be, to meander in after 1pm. And then the show starts an hour late.