By Karen D'Souza
Sacramento Bee
October 2, 1997

Darkness threatens to engulf the twilight world of "Rent" at any time. Blackouts and brownouts and blown-out candles bring lovers together and then tear them apart. A dying girl sees a light flickering at the end of a tunnel.

This rock opera about modern-day bohemians was Jonathan Larson's way of raging against the dying of the light. Its a Gen-X contemplation of mortality, anonymity and art in the big city made ironic by the fact that the playwright himself died young, poor and obscure.

Throughout his 35 years, Larson nurtured a single dream - to reinvent American musical theater for the next generation. He died last year just as that dream was becoming a reality - on the night of "Rent's" dress rehearsal prior to its New York premiere. His creation, which opened Sunday at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, went on to win every accolade imaginable, from the Pulitzer Prize to the Tony Award, and soon became an oh-so-hyped pop culture phenomenon. Directed by Michael Grief, the Los Angeles production runs through Jan. 18, 1998, before hitting the road for a national tour.

"Jonathan's only wish was to bring the MTV generation into the theater," says the playwright's soft-spoken father Al Larson, gesturing to the youngish crowd bustling around the modern majesty of the Los Angeles Music Center. "And he made it come true."

That his son has achieved cultural icon status with one show strikes him as bittersweet. "All this hoopla is a little like twisting the knife in the wound," he says sadly. "I keep thinking Johnny should be here."

Rentmania, as some call it, has driven many theatergoers, especially teens, to see the show again and again. There are T-shirts and web sites, and a movie deal is in the works. The blockbuster rock opera is expected to play San Francisco in 1999 in what will likely be the show's only Northern California stop.

At the opening night performance, spotlights flickered across a swank swarm of theatergoers. Tanned bodies tucked into tight black ensembles strolled in the evening warmth. Paparazzi scoured the crowd for bankable faces like Sarah Michelle Gellar of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." This fantasy-land of Hollywood chic made a stark and unsettling counterpoint to the bitter reality of Larson's play.

"The irony is that so many people are getting so rich off 'Rent,"' says Jonathan Burkhart, Larson's best friend, who remembers the starving composer slinging hash at a seedy Soho diner and riding a bicycle around New York. "Jonathan was a guy who would maybe buy a new pair of sneakers once a year."

Larson's masterpiece, which tackles pressing contemporary issues such as poverty, AIDs and crime in a gigantic, gender-bending tapestry, was clearly drawn from aspects of his own short life. It is foremost a tale about young people searching for love and redemption in a cold world.

Loosely based on Puccini's "La Boheme," the soap opera-like plot depicts life in New York's East Village. This is bohemian squalor at its most hip.

A diverse community forms among the artists and indigents living in a bleak neighborhood. In this shadowy world, a group of social outcasts find each other and become a family.

The mammoth piece unfolds as a musical indictment of our heartless, consumption-crazy society. The idea may be as old as Puccini but the sound of Larson's angst is fresh, irreverent and grungy. His vision of a "'Hair' for the '90s" leapfrogs between genres, hoping seamlessly from R&B to soft pop to kitschy tunes reminiscient of "Schoolhouse Rock."

The heroes of the show are anything but bland. Mimi (Julia Santana) is an exotic dancer and smack addict who lives for spandex; Roger (Christian Mena) a repressed songwriter longing to write one great song.

The couple falls in love during a cutesy number called "Light My Candle." It turns out that both of theirs are burning at both ends. They feel helpless and hopeless, ruled by ravenous appetites and all-consuming fears. Both of the lovers are HIV-positive.

In one tender '90s interlude, their beepers go off, their eyes lock and they pop pills. It's an AZT break.

Roger and his roomie Mark (a well-cast Neil Patrick Harris from "Doogie Howser, M.D.") live in a sprawling junkyard of a loft with spray-painted walls and no heat.

The only bright colors in this netherworld are artificial, from funky vintage clothes to glowing Christmas tree lights.

A wannabe indie filmmaker with a Doctor Who scarf and clunky black glasses, Mark keeps up a constant patter of narration. As one of the few twentysomethings in the play who is not sick, Mark is the observer and intellect.

Angel, a coquettish transvestite played to coy perfection by Wilson Cruz, is the heart of the show. A street musician with a nurturing soul, Angel keeps the family together with her wit and charm. She even sounds charming when describing how to bump off a yappy pet Akita in "Today 4 U."

Despite Angel's best efforts at keeping the peace, minor wars are waged over issues of love and lust.

Sparks fly when Maureen (Leigh Hetherington), a performance art dynamo, dumps Mark for Joanne (Kenna Ramsey). Riding in on a motorcycle to headline at a homeless protest, Hetherington's Maureen oozes lush irresistible charisma.

A bisexual take on the flirty Mussetta from "La Boheme," Maureen never met a come-on she didn't like. She virtually triples the temperature of the show with her trippy "Over the Moon" act and sing-along. Together, Maureen and Joanne shake the rafters in "Take Me or Leave Me," a charged lesbian love-duet.

When these vicissitudes of life get too intense for Mark, he picks up his camera and shoots away. The goings-on he documents are whimsical and tragic all at once.

Will Mark sell out and take a gig at a tacky TV tabloid? Will Benny, whose name is short for Benjamin Coffin III, the landlord (D'Monroe), destroy a homeless squatting ground? Will Angel, the saintly drag queen, lose her fight with AIDs? Can anyone pay the rent without selling their soul?

This lot scorns nothing more than suits, those upwardly mobile 9-to-5ers who live by the mantra, "You are what you own."

The characters capture the contemporary sense of been-there, done-that. They are cynical, street-savvy individuals with a freewheeling attitude toward sex, drugs and other recreational sports. And yet there is something unabashedly sweet about this multicultural extended family.

In another memorable scene, the cool kids descend on their fave cafe and stage a mock funeral for La Vie Boheme. Reeling off an endless list of stuff they love, from Susan Sontag and Stephen Sondheim to cheese, dildos and Maya Angelou, the Alphabet City denizens revel in the manic energy that comes with knowing your time is almost up.

When the end finally comes for one truly divine diva, its hard to beat back the tears.

Nonetheless, there are moments in "Rent," such as the nondescript beginning sequence, that are still searching for their rhythm. An overheated sex-simulation sequence goes nowhere. The voice-mail gimmick -- parents calling to guilt trip their wayward progeny -- is overused. The title song "Rent" is almost pedestrian.

Yet none of these objections matter in light of the teary euphoria the show induces.

The genius of "Rent" is not that it translates Puccini's schmaltzy 19th century romance onto the streets of New York or that it marries unlikely genres like opera and rock. Such tweaks and transpositions are par for the course in art, which always reflects back upon itself.

Larson makes his mark on the genre by giving his cast of ragamuffins a miraculous happy ending. In the Puccini opera, Mimi dies. In "Rent," she sees the light at the end of tunnel and then turns back. Like the sickly Prior in that other AIDs epic, "Angels in America," she survives. In an age of despair and darkness, Larson chooses to end his spectacle with life and light.