by Peter Lawley
Buffalo Beat
December 9, 1999

The downside: the unchanging set is bleak, the costumes resemble items yanked from somebody's hamper and the choreography is good but not great.

The upside: Rent, running at Shea's Performing Arts Center now through December 12, is a soaring rock-opera that excels at nearly every level. This witty, passionate exploration of the lives of a disparate group of New Yorkers won four Tony Awards following its 1996 debut, and is one of the few plays to win both the Tony for best musical and the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Based on Puccini's La Boheme, Rent slices through Rudy Giuliani's image of a Disney–fied New York like a chainsaw through cheddar. Its gritty realism portrays the souls who missed out on the'90's economic boom, people so far removed from Wall Street's bull-market they might as well be on Mars. These anti-yuppies take a bite out of the Big Apple and gleefully spit it out.

11th St. and Avenue B. The unheated loft of filmmaker Mark (Scott Hunt) and musician Roger (Cary Shields) is forbidding in the best of times, grimmer than usual on Christmas Eve. Mark is getting over the loss of his performance-artist girlfriend, Maureen (Michele Joan Smith), to Harvard Law grad Joanne (Jacqueline B. Arnold), while Roger, who is still grieving over his girlfriend's suicide, hasn't gone outside in months.

After friend Tom (Horace V. Rogers) phones to report being mugged, followed by former roommate turned landlord Benny (Stu James) calling for rent, the mood deteriorates. Then the power blows.

And so do Mark and Roger. The two break into the explosive "Rent," and the stage becomes electric as the entire cast joins in ("How we gonna pay the rent?"). A powerful rock number, it sets the tone of urban despair that permeates the production.

On the street, Tom is consoled by drag queen Angel (Shaun Earl). The two hit it off and head out to a support group meeting after learning they are both HIV+. Indeed, the specter of AIDS looms throughout the play, much the way tuberculosis did in La Boheme.

Roger, who also tests positive, has been trying to write a song but is interrupted by his upstairs neighbor, Mimi (Saycon Sengbloh), a junkie and S&M dancer. She's lost her power and is looking for a light, and the two share an awkward interplay. Mimi doesn't realize she has dropped her smack, nor is Roger aware that Mimi is also HIV+.

Benny soon drops by with a proposal for Mark and Roger: get Maureen, who is working on a protest of rental conditions, to drop her plans, and Mark and Roger can live rent – free. After the pair rejects Benny's offer, Mark goes to help set up the equipment for the protest and encounters Joanne. They realize how much they have in common during the humorous "Tango: Maureen."

Mimi, meanwhile, has been thinking about Roger. In the high point of Act I, Mimi drops her kimono to reveal a halter-top and skin-tight jeans then sidles downstairs to coo "Out Tonight" to a stunned Roger ("There is no future, there is no past/I live each day as if it's my last."). While visibly attracted, he is still wary, unable to react. A reaction comes from the background chorus instead, a support group meeting uttering the play's mantra ("No day but today").

A different kind of mantra comes from Maureen, who doesn't let her inherent ditziness get in the way of her performance art/protest. Her "Over The Moon" ("I've got to find a way to jump over the moon") is a hysterical bit of street theatre.

Not laughing is Benny. He has padlocked the apartment building and called the cops, and the homeless outside are ready to riot. But not before Roger and Mimi discover their respective HIV status, and share a quick kiss.

What keeps Rent from earning a flawless review (barely) is an Act II that is somewhat more rushed than the bravura Act I. Still, few plays have a first act with punch like this. Shields, Hunt and Sengbloh highlight a string of strong performances, and despite the somber subject matter the play is never a downer. Just the opposite- when Rent takes off it hits the stratosphere.

Speaking of uplifting, seats in the first two rows of the orchestra of Shea's are available for $20 for each performance of Rent. Contact ticket services two hours prior to curtain the day of the show (This practice began in New York in memory of creator Jonathon Larson, who died two weeks before Rent debuted).