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Justin Bachman Star-Telegram Dallas Bureau |
DALLAS -- Sitting cross-legged on a
downtown sidewalk outside the Majestic Theatre late Tuesday afternoon, Becky Barton held
forth on her favorite topic: the Broadway musical 'Rent,' which she was preparing to see
for the 11th time. "I bring everybody I can get to go see it," Barton began excitedly, furiously twisting the cap of her plastic Coke bottle, the excitement of her words paired with her frenzied exertions on the hapless bottle. "Until you see it, you have no idea. If you go see 'Cats' or 'Phantom,' you're seeing a show, and this one, you're looking at their life," the 24-year-old Fort Worth student said. "You can relate. You know someone like Angel. You know what they're feeling. ... It's such a cathartic experience to see the show. The story behind it, the message, everything," she said, referring to Angel Schunard, a character in the play. 'Rent,' at its simplest, is a love story couched in the adage of carpe diem, the pop culture mandate to seize every day as if it is the final chance to love, create and exult in life. Barton's sentiment is shared by two friends, Julie Gibson of Arlington and Kristina Popik of Grapevine, also hunched on the flower- printed comforter spread on the sidewalk. "I've dragged teachers up here, people from work, everybody," said Popik, 16, a student at Colleyville Heritage High School who met Barton through a 'Rent' Web site. Both plan to see the show in other cities this spring. 'Rent' closes its Dallas run Sunday and opens Wednesday in Houston. "I'm going to Houston and then Miami, if I can," Popik said. "And I'm going to St. Louis and Houston," Gibson blurted. Added Barton: "I'm going to Atlanta in May." Like the legions who followed the Grateful Dead on their summer journeys across America, a flock of mostly young devotees has taken to 'Rent,' the blockbuster Broadway musical that won its late creator, Jonathan Larson, four Tony awards and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Larson died at 35 of an aneurysm in January 1996, the night before 'Rent's' first preview. The day of every show, long before thousands of downtown workers begin their afternoon commute, 20 to 50 twenty-somethings congregate near Elm and Harwood streets outside the Majestic, hoping to snag the 30 $20 tickets sold two hours before each performance. This policy, strictly enforced in every city by Larson's wish to keep his work accessible to cash- strapped kids, prompts a daily sidewalk commune. The rock musical has engendered a nationwide following among those who have seen the show dozens of times, a la the cult film 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rent' fans become students: the libretto is memorized, the characters are minutely appraised, intricate details of the set are studied. "We've analyzed the heck out of this show," Barton said. Any conversation with a 'Rent'- stricken fan like Bryan Carpender quickly demonstrates the difference between admiration and adoration. On a recent rainy Wednesday, Carpender, a training instructor for an airline he declined to identify, took a sick day and flew to Dallas from his Scottsdale, Ariz., home to see his 81st performance of the show. This "very, very scary" feat, he says, probably makes him crazy, but he takes solace in the through- the-grapevine tale of a Wall Street tax attorney who attends nightly. The attorney has allegedly logged hundreds of performances. "It's kind of a hobby, like golf or tennis," says Carpender, a 25-year- old aspiring screenwriter. "I saw the workshop production off Broadway ... and on the East Coast, the West Coast, Phoenix, and now here I am standing in Dallas getting rained on." Larson set his story, a contemporary version of the opera 'La Boheme,' in New York's East Village and populated it with a likable cast of young artists dealing with HIV, drugs, emotional baggage, financial difficulties and clueless parents. The main characters, Mark and Roger, share an East Village tenement. Mark is a film student, while Roger mopes about as a creatively challenged, HIV-positive musician struggling with his girlfriend's suicide. Roger, a recovering junkie, meets Mimi, a heroin addict, and agonizes about his feelings for her. Mark's girlfriend, Maureen, has recently dumped him for a woman. Meanwhile, the landlord, Benny, wants his rent money. 'Rent' has solid bookings in 21 more cities through the end of 1999 and still sells to a standing-room-only crowd after nearly two years at the Nederlander Theater in New York, said Amy Katz, a show publicist. New York producers instituted a lottery last summer to keep hordes of people from camping on West 41st Street and to aid ticket availability for newcomers. "We call them the 'Rent' heads, just like Deadheads," Katz said. "The show really moves people in this very emotional way." Others who enjoy the show express skepticism at some of the worship. "I don't think I had an epiphany, [but] it was inspirational," said Brian Payne of Hurst, doodling in a notebook as he watched Barton's exposition, a mixture of amusement and awe on his face. "God didn't come down and hit me on the head." Lisa Baldwin, 16, was awaiting her first showing of 'Rent' with Barton, Gibson and Popik, scanning 'Cosmopolitan' and 'Glamour' as her friends rhapsodized and pored over Barton's photos of the cast and East Village locales mentioned in the play. Baldwin, her sneakers doffed and her head slouched on a pillow, said she did not understand the 'Rent' craze. "It's just entertainment," the Colleyville student said, rolling her eyes and giggling at her friends. "I just want to see it, enjoy it and then go on with my life." "Well then, you're not getting it," Barton replied. "People think I'm a goof for coming down here," acknowledged Russell Williams, a 36-year-old space allocation engineer who was standing in line for his third performance. "They don't get it." Gibson said 'Rent' evokes an immediate reaction. Before seeing it, the adulation of certain fans seems bizarre. Afterward, she said, their devotion is firm and perfectly comprehensible. "I would have thought this is pretty silly," she conceded, motioning at the people sitting on the sidewalk around her. "I think if you have blood flowing in your veins, you can't help but be moved," Carpender said. "It's the world we live in ... it's all about the constant struggle. You don't see people lining up in the rain for $20 tickets to just anything." "It's the first work that speaks to and for my generation." |
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