by Carolyn Clay
Boston Phoenix
June 24, 1999

Rent borrows its plot from Puccini and its anti-establishment thunder from Hair. But it's the Pulitzer-winning rock opera's pulse that is its strongest selling point -- that and the absence of its creator, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden and tragic demise on the eve of the show's success added mightily to the myth surrounding his removal of La bohème to New York's East Village "at the end of the millennium." Ours, not Puccini's.

That the 35-year-old Larson's death of an aortic aneurysm, while he was making tea in his poor-artist digs following a dress rehearsal of the work that had consumed him for years, contributed to the emotional impact of Rent is undeniable. The 1996 show quickly moved from its humble beginnings at New York Theatre Workshop to take Broadway by storm. Its original, grunge-garbed cast became magazine-cover boys and girls. And the musical was canonized as the second coming -- after Hair -- of raw if sprightly rock to arguably moribund Broadway.

Seeing Rent the first time it hit Boston, with the hype still as fresh as the sting of Larson's death, a critic couldn't help but be disappointed. This is a show that less achieved greatness than had greatness thrust upon it -- primarily by the media. Revisiting it in its current incarnation, with a more vocally impressive cast, one can better evaluate the show's weaknesses and strengths. Not the least of the latter is its heavy-bass-lined call to a young audience for whom Miss Saigon's helicopter and Phantom's chandelier have all the siren power of "Climb Every Mountain." When you're talking live entertainment, it helps to have a live audience. And Rent's fans (this time sans Louise Woodward, its most infamous Boston groupie) were loudly in evidence on opening night.

Of course they, having seen the show before, know what's going on. Truth to tell, though Rent's heavily amplified rock-meets-Broadway score artfully melds aggression and sentimentality, Larson's rewrite of Puccini -- which turns Bohème's Latin Quarter artistes into multicultural '90s youth trying to survive poverty, AIDS, and the lure of crack dealers while making art (none of it very good) of their alienation and community in Alphabet City -- is pretty muddy. And Michael Greif's muscular direction is more suggestive than clarifying. As if acknowledging the problem, the current production's program includes a plot synopsis complete with loopy diagram connecting the characters.

The show opens on Christmas Eve, and everyone is poorer than the couple in "The Gift of the Magi." Would-be filmmaker Mark and songwriter Roger share a slum loft next to a vacant lot populated by homeless people. Their erstwhile roommate Benny, who married rich and is now their landlord, wants to dislodge the homeless and build a "cyber studio" on the lot. Mark's ex-girlfriend, performance artist Maureen, abetted by new love Joanne, is planning a performance cum protest. Meanwhile, another former roommate, anarchist and computer whiz Collins, has been mugged and then rescued by drag queen (and the show's guiding spirit) Angel. Roger, HIV-positive and heartbroken since the suicide of his girlfriend, has withdrawn from the world but is seduced back into it by ass-waggling downstairs neighbor Mimi, who, in a wolf-howling turn, practically compels him to take her "Out Tonight." Puccini's Mimi, of course, dies of tuberculosis. Larson's, an exotic dancer fighting HIV and heroin addiction, quarrels with Roger and splits, then is brought back from a near-death experience by the song her lover has been endeavoring all evening (which covers a year) to write.

It is a testament to the superiority of this production to the one that played Boston in '96-'97 that its Roger, Christian Mena, though awfully clean-cut and short on anguish, sings very well; his predecessor was in the unfortunate situation of having to woo Mimi back to life with a goopy song ("Your Eyes") that he couldn't render in tune. Scott Hunt makes a nerdy yet aggressive Mark; his duet with Danielle Lee Greaves's strong if strident Joanne, about their infuriating mutual love ("Tango: Maureen"), is one of the show's high points. Cristina Fadale is a ballsy Maureen whose rendition of that character's performance piece captures both its passion and its essential inanity. Neither Pierre Angelo Bayuga, as Angel, nor Julia Santana, as Mimi, has quite the electric charge Larson intends, but both are vigorous talents who look good in bangles or spandex. Horace Rogers, as the mourning Collins, is the heart of the show, rendering his funeral reprise of "I'll Cover You" (his and Angel's first-act love song) with real emotion. And the whole leaping, gyrating cast brings pounding life to the defiant testament, "La Vie Bohème." If Rent isn't all it's cracked up to be, it's here in a crack production.