Darwin McPherson
ArtVoice
June 10, 1998

Rent.

A simple word, signifying for most a monthly financial transaction to assure that the roof over one's head remains an ongoing reality.

Rent is also the title of a breakthrough theatrical musical event.  In 1996, it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the Tony Award for Best Musical, and fistfuls of other awards.  It fostered new interest in musical theatre and set new standards for marketing a premiere event.

THE HISTORY

Jonathan Larson was a struggling songwriter/musician in New York City in the late Eighties/early Nineties.  Larson met Billy Aronson, a struggling playwright who was looking for a collaborator to help him develop a modern version of the Giacomo Puccini opera La Boheme.

La Boheme depicted the efforts of young artists to live, love and create in nineteenth century Paris despite poverty and illness.  But while Aronson and Larson were both drawn to the emotional lives of their prospective characters, Larson's interest was more deeply felt.

While the theme of the artists' struggle compelled Aronson, Larson actually saw the lives and experiences of his friends and associates in the story.  It became more personal to him, and eventually, Larson decided to carry on the development of Rent on his own.  The final version still bears three songs composed with Aronson and a credit for Aronson's concept.

Larson got Rent a production deal with the New York Theater Workshop.  NYTW artistic director Jim Nicola shared Larson's vision of bringing younger, hipper audiences into theaters, and he liked Rent's modernized La Boheme concept.

Director Michael Greif was brought in and development began in earnest.  Music decisions were made, the script was revised and revised again, producers came on board, a cast was found.  For Larson, it was a complicated path of collaborations and compromises, but they were always for the better.  And as a result, Rent moved from an unlikely ambition to and earnest reality.

THE TRAGEDY

The process of creation is slow and arduous.  It's especially difficult in a high stakes arena like New York City, where everyone wants to create a big Broadway show, and take in a lot of money to do it.

Larson was fortunate in finding NYTW and their dedicated staff.  All of them struggled to bring Rent to life.   While money wasn't exactly pouring in, Larson was able to quit his job as a waiter to devote his full attention to Rent.

Though he came from an upper middle-class background, Larson lived a Bohemian existence.  He got by on scant resources and help from his friends.

He was happy with that lifestyle, but as Rent came closer to big-time legitimacy - going into technical rehearsals - Larson seemingly began to feel the stress.  He experienced chest pains, and Larson believed he was having a heart attack.  Cabrini Medical Center said it was food poisoning.

A few days later, Larson had chest pains again.  The emergency room at St. Vincent's Hospital diagnosed a bad flu and sent him home.  Though still unwell, Larson managed to witness the final dress rehearsal and give an interview to the New York Times.

That night, Larson went home, suffered an aortic aneurysm, and died.  But the show, as they say, must go on.   Subsequent previews were met with rave reviews.  The timing of Larson's death undoubtedly brought additional attention and curiosity, but no reviewer's support was "for sale."

Rent was a critical success.  The directors and producers decided that moving the show to Broadway would not betray its bohemian ethic.  Instead it would provide access to a wider audience and fulfill Larson's Broadway musical ambitions.

The Success

Part of Larson's vision was to create a "Hair for the 90's."  Many critics made the observation on their own.  Some saw Rent as a turning point in the history of musical theater, like Hair and A Chorus Line before it.

Anthony Chase, Artvoice's theater editor agrees that Hair and Rent do share a certain theatrical similarity.

"Hair reflected a moment in history and captured the imagination of a young audience.  How much influence it ultimately exerted on the theater is debatable.  It was a crossover because it brought something to the Broadway mainstream that it had not seen before.   The excitement does not derive from innovation - the stakes are too high on Broadway for that.  The thrill comes from seeing something that had been trendy or new, cross over to the mainstream.  Look at The Lion King - director Julie Taymore had been avant-garde; Lion King is her mainstream crossover show.   This is true of Dreamgirls or Bring in da Noise.  What's new is seeing the work come together for mainstream audiences.  It is important, as well, that all of these shows were brilliantly directed, designed and choreographed."

Chase noted that Rent came in "after years of increasingly enormous musicals."  Visually, Rent was stark.  Journalists predicted a return to a more minimal musical.  The Chicago revival fits the mold, but shows like Ragtime and The Lion King certainly don't.  It's not possible for critics to predict how history will view a show or what its legacy will be.  That is not the way theater history is made.

Even before Rent opened on Broadway, its producers decided to market unconventionally with an eye to establishing historic importance.  Drew Hodges of Spot Design developed the stark stencil-and-masking-tape Rent logo.  The aesthetic sense was meant to appeal to an untraditional Broadway crowd.  It was supposed to draw in the young, artistic types portrayed in the play, who often felt the modern theater had no connection to them.

Another move the producers made to appeal to that crowd was to offer tickets for the first two rows for twenty dollars each, limited to two per person.  They'd go on sale two hours before the show began with careful security to weed out scalpers.

Besides creating universal access for those who couldn't afford Broadway ticket prices, the strategy created a perception that Rent was the hot ticket.  The lines going around the block were invaluable marketing tools for the show, which had just moved from New York Theater Workshop to Broadway's Nederlander Theater.

THE MUSIC

Rent moved to the Nederlander in time to be nominated for numerous theatrical awards.  While in rehearsals for the move, it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

After it opened on Broadway, Rent won six Drama Desk Awards, three Obies, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and a Drama League Award.  Nominated for ten Tony Awards, Rent won four:  best Musical, Best Score, Best Book and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (which went to Wilson Jermaine Heredia, who played Angel, a drag queen).

Rent and Jonathan Larson began to permeate the public consciousness.  A Rent cast recording was released by the entertainment conglomerate DreamWorks, which had a hand in Rent's marketing.   Larson's music, of course, became a big hit.

Suzanna LiBassi, a musical theater enthusiast (who recently appeared in the Lancaster Opera House production of Phantom), had heard of the tragedy surrounding Larson and Rent and became somewhat curious, but wasn't immediately affected by it.  That came when she discovered the music.

"I was at the library one day looking through CDs and I came across Rent.  I borrowed it and immediately fell in love with the music.  I think the first time I heard 'Seasons of Love,' I listened to it ten times over.  It's one of those musicals you can listen to over and over again and not grow tired of it."

Not long afterwards, she was in New York City and saw the Broadway production.

"There are so many aspects that I love about this show, but I would have to say the music I like the most," she admitted.  "There is so much variety - there's rock, there's pop ballads, dance and gospel.  I also love the character Angel Dumott Schunard."

Having seen the original cast, LiBassi saw Wilson Jermaine-Heredia's Tony-winning performance as Angel.  Moreover, she "felt very fortunate" to be able to see former Buffalo native Jesse L. Martin, who attended the Buffalo School of Performing Arts.  Martin played Tom Collins, Angel's lover.

"The chemistry onstage between the two characters was incredible; it was heartfelt."

While LiBassi found Rent "a bit more risque" than other Broadway shows she's seen, she was impressed with its fast-paced direction, which held her interest.

"Jonathan Larson was an aspiring composer.  He was incredibly talented.  Anyone who comes in contact with the music or the musical is going to be touched.  It's unfortunate that he died at such an early age.  This show is all we'll ever really know of him," she said.

THE SHOW

Rent is doesn't strictly follow la Boheme's story, so it isn't necessary to be well-versed in Puccini's opera.  However additional knowledge provides some extra perspective.

La Boheme is based on a French novel by Henri Murger- Scenes de la Vie de Boheme ("Scenes of Bohemian Life.")

"Bohemians are kind of like hippies or people who choose what they want to do," explained David Rudnicki, an opera student and aficionado.  In the opera, a group of artists - writer/poet Rodolfo, painter Marcello, philosopher Colline and musician Schunard - share an attic apartment.

"None of them have a good job, so they're very poor," Rudnicki said.

In Rent, Roger, an HIV-positive rock musician shares an apartment with Mark, an aspiring documentary film-maker.  They are friends with Tom Collins, an HIV-positive philosophy teacher who, in the course of the play, falls in love with Angel Schunard, an HIV-positive drag queen/street musician.  Roger's sole ambition is, at the start, to write one great song.  Mark serves as the narrative focus of the story.

In La Boheme, the need to get her candle lit prompts Mimi to knock on Rodolfo's door.  This parallels Rent, where Mimi knocks on Roger's door.  Both cases result in the couples falling in love.   The main different here is that in the opera, Mimi has tuberculosis, where in Rent she is HIV-positive.

Many of the characters and situations have parallels, but the outcomes are often different.  In the opera, the characters are more confused and less compassionate than they are in Rent.  For Rent, Jonathan Larson drew from friends and personal experience, giving the characters a depth Billy Aronson couldn't conceive.

In its time, La Boheme was unique because "usually operas were based on historical figures or Greek tragedies or kings and queens and stuff like that.  This was more about 'everyday life," Rudnicki said.  "The composers could compare themselves to the characters - their bohemian existence as poor student."

Though La Boheme has been done with modern settings (most recently in Australia), Rudnick believes Rent is a more likely modern-day representation of the opera's themes.

"Tuberculosis was a disease of 'bad girls' who didn't live proper lives," he said.  "But it was hugely a disease of working class people.  That it would have a modern counterpart in AIDS makes sense."

THE BIG PICTURE

Ultimately, Rent is about a community of misfits, who draw upon each other to face the challenges of life, death, society, ad everything in between.  They are friends, rivals and lovers, but they share one world and similar hopes and fears within it.

The show itself became a phenomenon through a number of elements coming together.  A tragic history attracted the press, creative marketing drew in the curious, and a hit song captivated the public.   Western new York audiences who want to experience the ground-breaking work of Jonathan Larson will have their chance from June 16-21, when Rent goes up at Shea's Performing Arts Center.