By Dan Hulbert
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 6, 1998

"Rent," the first Broadway musical that let rock be its own wild-hearted self and showed real, reckless, brave, funny, messed-up, substance-using, uncelibate young people of the 1990s, blazed onto the stage of the Fox Theatre Tuesday night.

And the cast begin to sing their hearts out. And the high volume and ferocious pace seemed to cause distortions in the sound system so that every fourth or fifth word was unintelligible. And before I knew it tons of information about the many storylines had shot right past me, and if I hadn't already seen the show in its 1996 off-Broadway premiere I would have been hopelessly lost. I was still semi-lost as it was.

The bottom line, then, for those who missed out on tickets for this sold-out engagement, is that there's something to be said for listening to the cast album at home, where you can savor each syllable of Pulitzer Prize-winning passion and wit from the late Jonathan Larson.

In "Rent" he conjures a whole community of East Village bohemians helping each other through addictions, AIDS, poverty, artistic struggle, yuppie landlords and love affairs of multiple combinations of gender and sexual preference. Larson cleverly follows the model of Puccini's "La Boheme," and the ghosts of that proud 19th century Parisian world hover behind the young Americans like the tremendous shadows that the footlights cast on the walls of the warehouse set.

"Rent" is an evening of searing images, then, and other sensations that you could never get with your CD player at home. The black set can be a single cavernous room or a whole quarter of the East Village, dominated by a wild junk sculpture that looks a space station that got banged by a few too many asteroids. The celebrated "Rent" costumes -- from black vinyl to fishnet stockings to nerdy retro kids' jackets from the 1950s --ooze with high hipness.

And the Larson music, too, must be heard live, because they communicate deep wells of emotion beyond the words that are so hard to make out. The melodic inventiveness is breathtaking. Even though the forms -- rock, rap, Latin, pop anthem -- are light years from the sounds of, say, Leonard Bernstein, I was reminded of that composer's "West Side Story" in the way Larson's songs build a sense of romantic anticipation in the New York City night.

The central romance is between Roger and Mimi (named after their "Boheme" models), an Anglo man and Latina woman, both HIV positive. As Mimi, Julia Santana is one of the best features of the product, singing "Out Tonight" as a she-wolf howl of sensual abandon.

Cary Shields, on the other hand, doesn't make a strong impression as Roger, apart from his ardent voice. He lacks that mysterious dynamism that separates a romantic lead from the chorus, and I felt as if I wouldn't have recognized him if I ran into him in the lobby at intermission.

Several other leading players have this problem to a lesser degree, as if in the process of touring the "Rent" company has used up its best leads. And yet Michael Greif's overall production -- sprawling, churning, visually thrilling -- makes the shortcomings easier to live with. "Rent" does not quite live up to its Broadway legend, but it's that rare phenomenon: a Broadway original.