by Kelli Otting
The Daily Iowan
February 25, 1999

"Rent," Hancher's top seller this year, not only filled the auditorium with a rollercoaster of emotions but gave it a facelift as well.

Picture no curtain, a cluttered set surrounded by a mosaic mural and a live band onstage. It's this surreal appearance that makes "Rent" what it is -- a play for the ages.

With powerful singers and emotional songs, "Rent" offers an outlook on life even if it is sometimes slightly bleak. Leaving the audience members laughing one moment and crying the next, the show and its performers provide today's generation, as well as the generations of yesterday, the chance to look deeper into the meaning of love and how without it, life is just "525,600 minutes."

Pierre Bayuga, who plays Angel, a street performer who is HIV positive, said his role in "Rent" is being the catalyst for love and how the world revolves around it. He added that his drag queen character can be summed up by his favorite line in the play, "Give into love or live in fear."

"We understand that both the young and the older understand the idea of love, that's what brings in people of all ages," Bayuga said. "Love touches everyone, but in this generation, there is a lot more loops in the emotional roller coaster."

"Rent," the winner of the Tony Award for best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is proving to be very popular on the road, with two companies currently touring in the United States and a third in Canada. The most honored musical since "A Chorus Line" in 1976, "Rent" is only the fifth musical ever to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award.

UI senior Holly Tinder said she was left with a "dull feeling" in her stomach, but, she said, she was definitely pleased with whatever she was feeling.

"It was phenomenal, because it talked about life and everything that we sometimes take for granted," she said. "It lived up to all my expectations and more."

"There were so many issues that are relevant to today's society," Tinder said. "This show really made me stop and think about what's going on around me."

One of the middle-aged audience members, Iowa City resident Lynn Spaight, said she enjoyed that the play represented the culture that surrounds younger adults today.

"Some individuals have the perception that younger generations aren't able to find their culture," she said. "This is the younger generation's culture, and that's what makes it so special for people from older generations. It gives us a chance to understand."

Spaight said the high energy performance and the capturing of the era is what drew her into the play itself.

"There are things in the play that I wouldn't consider classical, but it's the capturing of those two things that will allow this play to make it a name for itself," she said.

Bayuga said he hopes everyone, whether young or old, can walk out of a performance having been touched in some way.

"We want people to realize that everyone strives for the same thing regardless of race, age, color or sexual preference," he said. "There are messages all over in this show. We can only hope that both the young and the old are able to reach inside and find whatever emotion they received and learn from it."

The bottom line is "there is no day but today," Bayuga said.

"We want our audience to live for what they have and not take anything they have for granted," he said. "This the ultimate universal message."