by David Goldman
Southern Voice
August 5, 1999

The saga of "Rent" is as inspiring—and as heartbreaking—as "La bohème," the opera that inspired it.

The show's creator, Jonathan Larson, struggled for seven years to bring to the stage a modern musical version of Puccini's masterpiece of love and loss, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. When it premiered in Feb. 13, 1996, "Rent" drew the kind of raves reserved for the rarest of theatrical grand slams.

The musical moved from Off-Broadway to Broadway in May 1996. Newsweek devoted its cover to the show, calling it "the breakthrough musical of the '90s." The New York Times hailed it as an "exhilarating, landmark rock opera" that "shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical." David Geffen quickly plopped down $1 million for the rights to record the 33-song soundtrack.

It was, in short, the kind of genuine phenomenon that Broadway producers dream of, but seem less and less able to make happen.

But one man was missing—Larson. In an irony so cruel it might have been lifted from the most tragic of operas, Larson died of an aortic aneurysm on the day of final dress rehearsal. He was 35.

But the show he created lives on—and on. "Rent" received the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony, N.Y. Drama Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards for best musical. The show has casts on Broadway and in San Francisco, a U.S. touring company and troupes in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.

Next week, "Rent" returns to the Fox Theatre, where its performances last year quickly sold out. The cast includes Sandra DeNise, a Decatur native and a graduate of Paideia School.

"Rent" was on-stage in Charlotte, N.C., prior to coming to Atlanta, and two cast members spoke to Southern Voice from the Queen City about their work in the red-hot musical.

Pierre Angelo Bayuga performs one of the show's major roles, the transvestite Angel Schunard.

"She is the symbol of love in the show. Love is one of the strongest themes in the musical," Bayuga said. "She's an HIV-positive street performer who's very comfortable with her diagnosis. She embodies the theme of the show, which is 'no day but today.' She chooses to live her life to the fullest, and she is the catalyst for love.

"Through her actions, she brings the group of people on stage closer together and is able to open their eyes to what's important," Bayuga said.

Bayuga, a native of Toronto who gave his age as "twenty-something," entered professional show business at 19 as a member of the original Canadian cast of "Miss Saigon." Later he was hired for the show's German company, and that's where he was working when he was hired for "Rent."

Though the local press agent for MasterCard Broadway Series initially touted Bayuga as a straight man playing a gay role, Bayuga, in an interview, declined to reveal his sexual orientation.

"I'd rather not discuss that. I don't feel it's important. It doesn't have anything to do with the show, and I don't think it has any bearing on the character."

But Bayuga did admit that prior to landing the role "never in my life had I done drag." So where did he find his inspiration—studying drag queens, watching women or drawing from his own feminine side? "I think I turned to all three of them. I take from all those areas when I do the role as Angel."

For the HIV-positive aspect of the role, Bayuga, sadly, had personal references on which to draw. "I've had a few friends who have been sick and died of HIV, and I pulled from those experiences."

Though he's now been on the road with "Rent" since January 1998, Bayuga said it's not hard to keep his performances fresh and vivid.

"I believe that touring, in a way, helps. You get into these new cities, in a new theater, in front of a new audience, and that feeds the excitement and the energy. Then you remember the piece, and you start thinking about what you're saying. It's such a powerful message that you want to do it justice.

"I can go into the theater not necessarily feeling like I want to do the show and finding that it's so fulfilling to get through it that I leave the theater on a cloud," Bayuga said.

What brings individuals back to see "Rent" time and time again? "I think people can relate to the characters on stage. 'Rent,' from my experience, is not your typical Broadway fluff musical. There aren't elaborate costumes or moving sets or pyrotechnics. It's basically some metal tables and chairs, and 15 actors on stage telling this wonderful story of love and friendship and celebrating life and the commonality of everyone," Bayuga said.

Larson was not alone in seeing an eerie parallel between the tuberculosis epidemic that brings tragedy in the 1896 opera "La bohème" and the scourge of AIDS plaguing modern societies. When The Atlanta Opera last performed the work, stage director Whitfield Lloyd elaborated on the similarities between the two diseases.

"Tuberculosis was a young people's disease in the mid-to-late 19th century and claimed one in 10 lives on average," Lloyd told SoVo in 1993. "The current AIDS epidemic is, tragically, also a young person's disease. The universal truth and universal emotion in the story and music of 'La bohème' make it entirely relevant to modern audiences—perhaps more so," Lloyd said.

(The opera even includes a scene that might have been taken straight from the AIDS epidemic—the male lead rebuffs his ailing lover, not because he does not love her but because he knows her other, wealthier boyfriend can afford the medicine she needs to live.)

Unlike Bayuga, who said he had never seen "La bohème," fellow cast member Brent Davin Vance "loves" the opera. Vance, who is gay and from Detroit, is an ensemble member who performs multiple roles, including an AIDS counselor, a flamboyantly gay waiter and a policeman. Keeping track of these personas is not difficult.

"These characters are all so different that each time I walk on stage it's hard not to be that person," he said.

Though he's only in his mid-20s, Vance already describes himself as "an old show ho." He's appeared in theme parks, Las Vegas and on cruise ships. He admitted he'd never heard of "Rent" before being hired for the touring show.

Vance has his own ideas about why so many gay people come to "Rent."

"I think it's popular because it really tells the story of our lives realistically. Not everything is always going to be happiness—but not everything is always deep drama, either." His fellow cast members, Vance said, keep him working hard.

"I'm lucky enough to have a cast that won't let you bullshit on stage. They're so in the moment—at all moments—that they won't let you fake anything," Vance said.

Just as the two-hour and 45-minute show draws its cast together, it pulls the audience into the funky, downtown, downtrodden yet hopeful world its characters occupy, Bayuga said.

"For me, the thing that I find beautiful about it is that it shows that we all feel the same. Regardless of our sexual preference or our race, we all suffer and feel pain the same. We all feel love and happiness the same way," he said. "I love that about the show. It really makes people realize that we're all human, and we all have the right to live. That's the beautiful thing about it."