In The Heights - New York City Center ★★★★

Halfway through the second act of City Center’s revival of In the Heights, the show explodes with an energy and purpose that cannot be denied in “Carnaval del Barrio,” an exuberant company number that is the production’s highlight. Led by salon owner Daniela (a deliciously sassy Linedy Geno), the song builds and builds, celebrating the boiling pot (it’s July, and the power’s out) of Latin cultures in Washington Heights. Cast members dance with flags representing their home cultures, their love and passion for both their individual heritages and their shared community in upper Manhattan spilling from the stage and filling the entire theater. It’s a reminder of what seemed possible in 2008, the year the audience is told this production is set, when it opens with Graffiti Pete (Cristian “Chino” Rodriguez, killing it with the moves) tagging ’08 on the roll-down gate of the bodega that serves as the show’s center.

2008 is not a random choice. That’s the year In the Heights opened on Broadway and heralded the arrival of a young spitfire talent named Lin-Manuel Miranda, who started writing the music and lyrics for the show while in college. He was eventually joined by playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, who fashioned a book that gave the piece a more coherent shape.

Both enormously talented creators would later go on to win Pulitzers for other shows — Hamilton and Water by the Spoonful, respectively — and now, in retrospect, it feels like In The Heights was a warm-up for their stronger works to follow.

Not that this show doesn’t have its highs. They’re just slightly too intermittent. For a show bursting at the seams with vitality, its dramatic engine can’t keep up plot-wise, causing a constant slowdown in momentum. Someone wins $96,000 in the lottery, and rather than maintaining that mystery for even a few minutes, almost immediately the victor is revealed. Academic star Nina returns from Stanford with a secret, but not for long. A fight breaks out at a club but ends unceremoniously when the power goes out. Uplift is essential, ongoing conflict studiously avoided.

Great as that is for a neighborhood, it’s less desirable for anything put on stage. Did Miranda and the original cast, which included future Broadway mainstays Christopher Jackson, Karen Olivo, Mandy Gonzalez, Robin de Jesús, and, in his Broadway debut, Joshua Henry, happily compensate for the libretto’s shortcomings? Perhaps. Also possible: It was a happier time in the country, and such unbridled optimism felt less questionable.

Fortunately, this new cast of fresh faces gives new reasons to hope, if not for the nation, then at least the city’s stages. The three women at the center of the story — Jaci Calderon, Ashley de la Rosa, and recent Tony winner (for Buena Vista Social Club) Natalie Venetia Belcon — all sing gloriously. A charming Matte Martinez has the challenging job of taking on Usnavi, the part Miranda wrote to suit all of his unique strengths, and he acquits himself admirably, as does Aaron James McKenzie as Benny, the love interest of Nina, who elicits appreciative oohs and aahs when he enters shirtless at the start of the second act.

Usnavi’s bodega may have been robbed during the blackout, but the biggest thief in this hood is Ishmael Gonzalez as Sonny, Usnavi’s lively younger cousin. With their swoops and sweeps, the hilarious Gonzalez steals every scene they’re in, making you wish they’d never leave the stage, which, for the record, features a fantastic orchestra-on-the-bridge set by Raw Rakkulchon.

Director David Mendizábal and terrific choreographer Mayte Natalio keep the show grooving, and the sexy company of dancers constantly raises the production’s temperature. Their love for the material seems boundless, and that adoration is infectious, affecting an audience that was, notably, far more diverse than is typical on or off Broadway.