by Diane Windeler
San Antonio Express News
December 3, 1998

Monique Daniels (top) plays lawyer JoAnne to Leigh Hetherington's Maureen (a performance artist) in a scene from 'Rent.'

"Rent" is brash, funny, deeply moving and a bona-fide showbiz phenomenon. The pop- rock musical with an ensemble cast of young unknowns opened off-Broadway on Jan. 26, 1996. By year's end, it had moved to Broadway and won a raft of theaterdom's most coveted awards. 

Moreover, its composer-writer, Jonathan Larson, was given a posthumous Pulitzer prize for drama. That was just one of a series of fateful twists surrounding this show about living life as if tomorrow may not come: Larson, who seemed in good health, died suddenly of a heart aneurysm just hours before the show was due to open.

Another twist is that composer Steven Sondheim was a mentor to Larson. Sondheim was the lyricist for the Leonard Bernstein musical "West Side Story," which took Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" to New York City's streets and gang wars.

The connection with Sondheim — who believed Larson was on the threshold of a brilliant career — becomes clear with the knowledge that "Rent" is another transformed classic: the Lower East Side re-setting of Puccini's opera, "La Boheme."

The opera's familiar struggling-artist characters are transformed to street people, junkies, performance artists and others trying to make every day count amid poverty and AIDS.

Music ranges from blues to reggae and rock or contemporary sounds. And the title comes from dodging the landlord and moving to new digs just before the rent comes due.

For a pre-curtain heads-up, consider this sketch of the revamped characters from "La Boheme":

• The poet Rodolfo becomes Roger, an HIV-positive rock musician and composer.

• Mimi, the gentle seamstress with TB becomes an HIV-positive junkie who falls for Roger.

• The painter Marcello is now Mark, Roger's roommate and a documentary filmmaker.

• Flirtatious Musetta is Maureen, a performance artist who leaves Mark for a woman.

• Wealthy old Alcindro, Musetta's patron, becomes JoAnne,Maureen's lover.

• The philosopher Colline is now Tom Collins, a teacher in love with a drag queen, Angel.

• Schaunard the musician becomes Angel Schunard, the HIV-positive, cross- dressing street musician.

• Benoit the feisty landlord becomes wealthy Benny, a larger role but still an eviction-loving landlord.