by Michelle Henderson
Herald Times
November 28, 1999

The Broadway musical hit 'Rent' will start a run of shows at the Indiana University Auditorium

Those destined to leave the greatest legacies can burn out early, like a flame that can't sustain itself. Such was the case when 35-year-old Jonathan Larson died just one day before his cutting-edge rock-musical Rent premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1996.

His life snuffed out by an aortic aneurysm, Larson left a musical legacy that has soared into the stratosphere, and that will forever reflect the joys and trials of this millennial ending. For now though, it's simply a pop-culture phenomenon.

Opening at the Indiana University Auditorium on Tuesday, this joyous but often bittersweet musical will celebrate a community of artists struggling to find beauty in a harsh world.

Inspired by La Bohème, Puccini's famous opera about Parisian artists in the early 19th century, Rent tells the story of Bohemia in New York's present-day East Village — complete with impoverished artists, drug addicts, S&M dancers and transvestites.

Despite its inspiration, comparisons to Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar are readily made.

Rent has redefined the American musical in the same way that Hair did in the 1960s when it tapped into the peace-loving, freewheeling hippie attitude of the East Village.

Both musicals brought the excitement of the street onto the stage, but Rent captures the heart and spirit of today's youth culture.

As with all that have come before it, Rent reveals how the forces of love can both sustain and repel this group of New York survivors. But now they must contend with love's frailties within the context of an HIV and AIDS environment.

The characters confront issues of sexual identity and drug addiction while facing the realities of living in a city that offers the best and worst of life. Oh, and let's not forget that they do it all while trying to keep a roof over their heads.

There's a deeper meaning to Rent than just the responsibilities of bill-paying. It touches on the fear that artists are becoming marginalized by their economic need to survive; that the commercialized world is quickly encroaching upon the Bohemian state of mind.

The plot mirrors Larson's real life as a decidedly un-Bohemian, middle-class boy from White Plains, N.Y., who opted to live in a "low-rent" district of Manhattan while scratching his way toward artistic success.

Rent's eight main characters, fall in and out of love, search for drugs and try to keep loved-ones off drugs. They break up and come back together, even while caring for each other in the face of death.

It's something that Larson witnessed first-hand, having had two close friends die of AIDS and a girlfriend who'd become involved with another woman.

But of all the things these characters do, living is what they do best. And living they do — until they no longer can. Larson, more than anyone, understood the concept of one day at a time.

Since bursting onto the scene, Rent has garnered almost every imaginable award including a Pulitzer Prize, two Tonys, three Drama Desks and an Obie for outstanding music, lyrics and book.

The music alone is captivating, an upbeat blend of pop and rock infused with melodious tunes, ear-catching harmonies and lyrics that convey the full essence of the scene.

When James Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop, was contacted by Larson, he was most impressed with Larson's ability to blend contemporary pop with theater music. According to Nicola, the theatrical scene had reached a tragic place where "pop music and theater music had gotten a divorce."

The soundtrack for Rent is so distinctly in the "here and now," it clearly satisfies Larson's aim of bringing musical theater to the MTV generation.

And the producers of Rent have made it a point to select a cast that has raw talent.

When auditions were held here a couple of months ago, the producers were not particularly interested in opera- or classically trained performers, or, in their words, the kind of conservatory-trained voices that can sometimes be devoid of emotion.

Their reliance on new and undiscovered talent imbues the musical with gut-wrenching reality in all its joy and pain.

Larson said he'd hoped to save American musical theater, but could he have predicted the ascent of Rent?

It seems he did foresee its future. In one of his last interviews, he said that the time had come to reclaim Broadway from stagnation.

The man who grew up loving the music of Police and Prince but for whom Stephen Sondheim was a mentor was able to fuse the elements that have again made theater accessible.

To encourage the struggling artists of today, the first three rows of each Rent production have been set aside as low-price tickets.

Larson would have identified with those who sit in the first three rows. They're likely to be the future of America's musical theater.