by Chuck Lavazzi

The 1996 rock musical Rent comes to the Fox this week with a trail of  honors as long as Jacob Marley's chain and at least as heavy: multiple Tony awards,the Pulitzer for best drama, and a pile of rave reviews from everyone from the New York Times to Rolling Stone. That's a pretty heavy rep, so when I say that Rent doesn't quite live up to it, that's merely praising with faint damns.

Take Rent in the absence of the hype and hoopla, and it's a damn fine piece of musical theatre. Jonathan Larson's score is inventive and stylistically eclectic and his lyrics are artful and intelligent. Unfortunately his book, Pulitzer prize or no, struck me as a bit contrived and short on character development. But then, so is the one he based it on - the libretto for Puccini's La Boheme. Larson's work here shows great talent and promise, which makes his death just hours before the show's final dress rehearsal all the more poignant - and a great loss to musical theatre.

Whatever Rent's dramatic and structural weaknesses may be, they're overwhelmed by the energy and sincerity of a talented and varied cast, some of whom are making their professional debuts with this production. It's hard to judge their acting talents given the two-dimensional nature of some of the characters, but they sing and dance up a storm in a way that makes the whole  evening impossible to resist.

Although there's not a bad performance in the show, the ones that stand out in my mind include:

* Andy Senor as the sweet and tragic gay transvestite Angel. He makes the character so sympathetic that his death scene during the touching ballad "Without You" is a sure-fire tearjerker.

* Julia Santana as the vivacous but drug-addicted Mimi, switching easily between passion and pathos;

* Owen Johnston II who makes the guitarist Roger's pain and creative frustration believable, despite the script;

* And Leigh Hetherington as the self-obsessed and hilariously pompous performance artist Maureen.

Paul Clay's urban junk-shop set is all concrete, metal rails, and a  massive mobile that looks like the result of a tornado in a scrap yard. It's a perfect reflection of the down-at-heels East Village setting of the show and allows for a variety of interesting playing areas. And the band is tight and not as numbingly loud as I expected.

What amuses me most about Rent, though, is how much this modern and supposedly revolutionary show reminds me of another rock musical to which those same adjectives were applied back in 1968 (when I was about the same age as the  characters in Rent): Hair. Like Hair, Rent takes jabs at the older generation - mine - and thumbs it's nose at the American status quo from the bottom of the economic pyramid. Unlike Hair, though, it's less overtly political, covers a wider emotional spectrum, and may actually be a better piece of theatre.

But I encourage you to find out for yourself. Rent is at the Fox through this Sunday [3/22/98] and while all performances are sold out, you never know when somebody's going to cancel. Call 314-534-1111 to find out more, because you really should see this funny, touching, and rousing show while you can.