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Judith Newmark Post-Dispatch March 15, 1998
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Not since "Hair" has a mainstream theatrical event so thoroughly connected with the counterculture, weaving two divergent social trends into a single vivid banner for its times. Not since "A Chorus Line" has a musical won such acclaim: rave reviews, sold-out houses in New York and elsewhere, four Tonys (including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book), three Obies, six Drama Desk awards and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It's been praised for its buoyant spirit, its willingness to tackle serious contemporary issues such as AIDS and homelessness, its demonstration that a dazzling American art form, musical theater, lives on in more than revivals. "Rent," the show that opens Tuesday night at the Fox, ought to feel like a celebration. And yet, that sense of celebration is always undercut. No matter how life-affirming the musical seems, there's always that undercurrent, pulsing under the rock-inflected score like a bass line so deep you can't even hear it, but you can feel its aching throb. Just try to think about "Rent," and not think about what happened to Jonathan Larson. It can't be done. Just the effort puts the lie to academic arguments about how a work of art should - must - speak for itself. How can it, when life imitates art with such absurdly tragic irony? Maybe you don't have to know a thing about Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to love "South Pacific," or Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones to enjoy "The Fantasticks," or Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to savor "Evita." But it's impossible to separate "Rent" - the hugely successful musical that tells the story of young bohemians struggling to create art in the face of death - from the parallel story of its creator, a 35-year-old writer/lyricist/composer who dropped dead of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the last dress rehearsal. "Bittersweet is the word that keeps coming up (about the success of "Rent")," Al Larson, Jonathan Larson's father, told The New York Times. "But for us, it's a lot more bitter than sweet." From the point of view of the Larson family, that must be unquestionably true. But from the point of view of the audiences who have made "Rent" one of New York's toughest tickets and who are buying up tickets to performances around the country (including St. Louis, where the Fox is nearly sold out), the real-life story has undeniable, albeit heartbreaking, allure. In our culture, the death of the young artist has always been the ne plus ultra of romantic tragedy. In "Rent," which is based on Puccini's "La Boheme," the artists are the counterculture denizens of Alphabet City in East Village), where nobody has money but everybody has dreams - and where a lot of people need to make those dreams come true fast, because they are HIV-positive. Such a story could well resonate on its own (Puccini's does). But the reality of Larson's life and untimely death inevitably edge through the work itself, reminding the audience: This is real. People do die young. Pay attention. That, of course, doubles, triples, quadruples the impact of the play's message, delivered in song by the waiflike heroine Mimi: "No day but today." Live every day as if it were all you had. Maybe it is. This is not an original message, but that doesn't make it any less valuable - and "Rent" balances the eternal verities with production values that scream with timeliness. In its look, sound and subject matter, "Rent" is unmistakably the work of its owner. It's vulgar and sentimental and nervy, qualities that have brought it all those awards and admiring reviews, as well as some criticism. (For example, Robert Brustein, writing in the New Republic, derided "Rent's" mawkishness and superficiality. On the other hand, The New York Times' Ben Brantley said the show "shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical.") But like it or not, it's different. Watching "Rent" is nothing like watching the traditional musical, a "Show Boat" or "The King and I" with its charming, well-bred characters and graceful music. It's more like having dinner with your tattooed niece at a really loud diner. Consequently, "Rent" has succeeded in drawing not only the usual musical-theater crowd - who may, in fact, be somewhat baffled by its score, with its elements of reggae, salsa and grunge rock - but younger audiences, as well. In fact, in a gesture to honor Larson, who believed that one reason young adults don't go to musical theater is that they can't afford it, the producers reserve a small number of up-front tickets for each performance at $20 each. In New York, the lines for these tickets are already legendary. (The road companies make similar arrangements. There will be 30 such seats at each performance at the Fox, available on the day of performance only on a first-come, first-served basis, two hours before show time.) "Rent" opened on Feb. 13, 1996, at the New York Theatre Workshop, a house with a rough look and only 150 seats. Some people feared that the transfer to Broadway, which happened about 10 weeks later, when the show was already a big hit, would give "Rent" too much polish, destroying its ragged, alternative zest. There was no need to worry. The director, Michael Greif, kept the look and feel decidedly downtown, even after uptown ticket prices kicked in. And what happens when this emphatically New York ambience hits the road? Not much, according to Mark Tynan, production/stage manager of the company that's coming here. Though by now "Rent" has acquired the luster of a serious hit, it still looks as thrown-together as the bizarre, Santa's elf-on-smack costume worn by Angel, the sweet-natured drag queen who is one of the main characters. Of course, it looks that way on purpose. "We wanted to invite the audience into our space," rather than going into the world of the audience, Tynan explained. To that end, Paul Clay's set features a very few areas, loosely defined by a trio of tables and a pay phone, plus a couple of upper-level balconies. (The raw number that the heroine, Mimi, performs on one balcony, "Out Tonight," comes across as an ironic contemporary comment on the maidenly balcony performance of "Tonight" that Maria delivers in "West Side Story.") One side of the stage is taken up with a big junkyard sculpture, an homage to a similar artwork in the East Village. The other side is occupied by the band, which is, above all, loud. "We want you to see what we are doing," Tynan said. That goes for Blake Burba's lighting design as well. The lighting is fairly harsh, used to shape the space in broad strokes; the lighting equipment is exposed, not masked. Angela Wendt's costumes are aggressively mismatched, conspicuously ugly and sometimes spiritedly sexual. The look comes right from the streets of Manhattan. As do some of the performers. One of the most important elements in keeping "Rent" true to its roots for the road is the decision Greif made to keep the show fresh by repeatedly seeking out young, relatively inexperienced performers. Very young performers - if this company goes out for a drink after the show, they're probably carded. All of them are unknowns; some had a little experience, some even had agents and auditioned conventionally. But several of the performers won their roles the impossible ways, from open calls - auditions in which anybody who wanted to try out was allowed to give it a shot. The odds are not unlike those in lotteries. Some of the principals in the production here never acted before they joined the tour. Christian Mena, who plays rock singer Roger in this company (though he's temporarily out of the show with a knee injury, sustained in performance) is in fact a singer with a pop Latin band. Mark Leroy Jackson, who plays computer whiz Tom Collins and sings the show's love anthem, "I'll Cover You," was until recently the manager of a pizza parlor in Kalamazoo, Mich. Julia Santana, who plays Mimi, had done a little acting, was a street performer and also sang with a band, The Cribb. But at least she knew the East Village scene firsthand. "When I was growing up, the Village was my playground," Santana says. She thinks "Rent" serves up a pretty accurate portrayal of the scene. The best story probably belongs to Andy Senor, who endears himself to audiences with an over-the-top performance as Angel, Tom Collins' transvestite lover. Senor was cast last spring, while he was still a senior majoring in theater at Florida International University. "Everybody felt bad for me when I told them I wasn't going to graduate school after all," he says with a sly grin. "Then I told them why." Over and over, the performers say the same thing, that they were cast less for their experience than because something in them resonated with the characters they portray. "I am just playing myself," says Mena. "That I am not HIV-positive is irrelevant. I think that's what acting is, sticking yourself into a different role, into a different life." Of course, he adds, he's still working on finding out what acting is. But the lack of experience that the performers bring to their roles keeps the show's rough edge, as Greif intended; no one in "Rent" gives a lapidary performance. Voices are strong, rather than beautiful; Marlies Yearby's choreography is energetic, rather than disciplined. Like the characters they portray, the actors all grew up in the age of AIDS; they don't remember a time when it was not. D'Monroe, the singly-named actor who plays the yuppie landlord Benny, speculates that "Rent" may come to seem a period piece, as "Hair" does now, when AIDS can be treated more effectively. On the other hand, he says, as long as people die, the message about making the most of life, living actively in the present tense, will resonate: "No day but today." The actors do not
forget that message. Backstage, where they cannot help but see it as they make their
entrances and exits, is a hand-carved wooden plaque, about the size of a vanity mirror. It
says, "Thank You Jonathan Larson." Seats are extremely limited. As in other cities, a small number of $20 seats in the first two rows will be available on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of performance only, two hours before curtain. Tickets: 534-1111 |
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