by Jennifer Barrs
Tampa Tribune
January 13, 2000

Rent" is a heckuva hit not because the music is hip. Or the cast is hot. Or the story is an ageless tale of artists struggling to survive - although all those things are true.

No, the Broadway blockbuster "Rent," which is on its second visit to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, is a smash because it grabs people by the dreams and won't let go. For every little girl in torn warm-up tights who posed before a mirror, for every little boy with an air guitar who slammed out The Rolling Stones' hits, "Rent" is overdue with emotion about chances and choices and the roads not taken.

Indeed, to all those places where a confessional "Chorus Line" feared to tread, "Rent" goes broad and bold - with the landlord at its heels. It is sexy and nasty and loud and fun. But that doesn't mean the musical that visits through Sunday is perfect or flawed. It is neither - and both.

It is too loud sometimes, and its words too hard to understand. But it injects the audience with an energy that belongs to invincible youth.

And to the Trey Elletts of this world - who probably didn't know they would be singing the lead on opening night - it is all about pulling it off with remarkable aplomb. You go, guy.

Yes, to Ellett and his fellow cast members - in particular, Horace V. Rogers as Tom Collins and Saycon Sengbloh as Mimi Marquez - we salute you. Because you know (better than any critic) that this show is about the word instead of the act, the writer in lieu of the actor.

Jonathan Larson, the creator of "Rent," worked as a waiter for years while penning the musical. The day after the final dress rehearsal, he died of an aortic aneurysm at 35.

Incredibly, ironically, the show went on to win every major award bestowed on Broadway musicals: the Pulitzer Prize for drama, four Tony Awards, six Drama Desk awards and more.

Therefore, Larson's legacy is to loudly proclaim that love matters most.

It is all about loving each other, loving your work, loving your life. These matter above all accolades because - as fate so strangely displayed - it can be snatched away too swiftly.

Larson explained these "aways" by taking Puccini's opera, "La Boheme" (which introduced the term "Bohemian" into the language) and cranking it up a contemporary notch, to the turbulent 1990s. Rock 'n' roll replaces the powerful Puccini warblings, and the characters get a makeover courtesy of modern times. Some characters are infected with the AIDS virus instead of tuberculosis. And throughout, they are crowded together in a freezing East  Village loft where the landlord threatens them with eviction because he wants the space for a computer studio.

The cast is symbolic (and stereotypical) of a generation jerked around by political leftovers and philosophical questions: a tender heroin addict, a lovable drag queen, a black philosopher, a video pundit. As actors, they are frankly tremendous, and Michelle Joan Smith brings the house down with sheer chutzpah on numbers such as "Over the Moon."

But where this "Rent" ultimately gets paid is in the music - in the band - by the nitty, gritty, gimme-some-shelter grooves that keep you hanging on when the dramatic door slams shut. The music, too, you see, was written by Larson.

And he idolized one of Broadway's greatest composers, Stephen Sondheim.