Love âHamiltonâ? See the seeds from which it sprang: âIn the Heightsâ at GALA
âHamiltonâ may have made Lin-Manuel Miranda a megaÂcelebrity, but it was âIn the Heights,â which opened on Broadway in 2008, that established him as a musical-theater composer. And, unlike âHamilton,â âIn the Heightsâ was autobiographical: Miranda grew up in the Manhattan neighborhoods of Inwood and Washington Heights in the 1990s.
In his dialogue as well as his songs rooted in salsa, hip-hop and Sondheim, Miranda brought to life those neighborhoods, where Latino immigrants squabbled and dreamed of better lives in an unruly mix of Spanish and English. To reach as broad an American audience as possible, Miranda tilted the ratio of Spanish to English words decidedly in the latter direction. But some audiences longed to see that reversed.
Some wanted it so much that unauthorized Spanish versions of the show started popping up across Latin America. Miranda finally approved a translation into Dominican Spanish, and thatâs the script having its U.S. premiere as âIn the Heights en EspaĂąolâ at GALA Hispanic Theatre. Shepherding the production is director Luis Salgado, who not only performed and served as assistant choreographer in the original production, but also grew up in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, the same town from which Mirandaâs family hails.
âA lot of people in Latin America want to see âIn the Heightsâ because American musical theater has become very popular there,â Salgado says. âWhen I grew up in Puerto Rico, our teachers in dance school, in music school, loved American musicals, because they had grown up with the old films. But it has blown up now, thanks in part to YouTube, where anyone can see the dances and hear the music. When I went back to Puerto Rico, nine, 10 dance schools had sprung up since I was last there. Peru, Colombia, Mexico â itâs expanding everywhere.â
...
GALA theater has a standard practice of using surtitles in its shows, but âIn the Heights en EspaĂąolâ will feature English surtitles for the Spanish dialogue and lyrics and Spanish surtitles for the English. Although most of the show is in Spanish, it will still be bilingual. After all, why would Ninaâs father, who insists that she marry a Spanish speaker, object to Benny unless the young suitor spoke only English? Benny may be a model employee at the fatherâs taxi company, but thatâs not enough.
â âIn the Heightsâ brings out the reality that poverty and criminality donât have to go hand in hand,â Salgado points out. âThere are so many minority communities where people go to work every day and work hard with the knowledge that they donât have enough money for their kidsâ lunch money. That doesnât mean youâre going to go out and steal from somebody. That assumption is offensive to all the poor people who are playing by the rules. This show was important for that reason. It doesnât lack conflict, because theater canât exist without conflict, but there are other conflicts than violence.â
[Source. See here for more from Luis Salgado.]
(I donât usually editorialize here but there is some unfortunate phrasing in this article, even aside from the error of thinking Heights is more autobiographical than Hamilton. Unruly?)
