by Tony Brown
Charlotte.com
July 29, 1999

"Rent,'' which opened Tuesday at the Blumenthal Center for a two-week Charlotte run, is a difficult work of art to evaluate because it will never be completed.

Composer and lyricist Jonathan Larson died of an aortic aneurysm just before his rock musical remake of "La Boheme'' began previews off-Broadway in January 1996.

Larson's volcanic passion for life, love and art engages the mind and inflames the heart, as does his compassion for those afflicted by AIDS, heroin addiction and poverty. The show won a Pulitzer Prize, is still playing to capacity audiences on Broadway and has spawned several tours in the United States and abroad.

Despite its popularity and prizes, "Rent'' is pocked by saccharine platitudes, bland music and juvenile anti-authoritarianism. Larson rigged his ending, and in doing so ruined it. And for all its proclaimed hiptitude and vaunted outrageousness, "Rent'' does far less in our era to revolutionize the American musical than "Showboat'' and "West Side Story'' did in theirs.

Impossible to dislike, maddeningly sloppy and full of falsely nihilistic "X'' bravado, "Rent'' is aptly emblematic of the generation it celebrates.

Larson's idea was cleverly simple: Transport the starving and diseased artistic types of Puccini's "La Boheme'' from a 19th-century Paris garret to an abandoned warehouse in 1990s downtown New York. Trade the tuberculosis and booze for AIDS and heroin and you have "Rent.''

Like Puccini's motley esthetes, Larson's gang of malcontents win our sympathy despite the fact that they choose to be miserable because, of course, artists have to be miserable to be happy.

Practically everybody pops AZT every few hours. Calls from suburban moms go unanswered. The homeless scream curses and squeegee windshields down the alley. The fashion is a mix of skin-tight vinyl and ill-fitting plaid bargains from the consignment shop.

This raggedy but endearing tale is told almost entirely through music. And that's where any favorable comparison with "Boheme'' must end.

With utter grace and great economy, Puccini packed his short opera with some of the most compelling music ever written. Larson's overly long score, on the other hand, is too often bloated with monotonous reprises and blatant sentimentality.

"You'll be my king and I'll be your castle.'' "No, you'll be my queen and I'll be your moat.'' This is supposed to be a witty lyric in a rock musical's love duet between two men. But it sounds more like a bad spoof.

There are musical moments that are truly moving: the aching "One Song Glory''; the comic "Tango: Maureen''; the rocking "Tomorrow 4 U'' and "La Vie Boheme''; the haunting "Seasons of Love.''

These and other theatrically evocative scenes are brought to fast-paced life by this hugely energetic tour. Producer Jeffrey Seller skimps on little, capturing the low-rent but glittery look and feel of the New York production.

Director Michael Greif has his touring actors play some of the comedy more broadly for the provinces, adding sexually suggestive bits here and there. And by speeding things up, he knocks a good 15 minutes off the New York running time of three years ago. Even so, 160 minutes is still 20 minutes too long.

The cast is a strong one musically, doing seamless ensemble vocal work. But no one here is going to win any acting awards.

Scott Hunt's runty Mark, our filmmaker/narrator, makes you want to hug him. Danielle Lee Greaves gives Joanne, his ex-girlfriend's current lover, palpable soul. As Angel, a drag queen, Pierre Angelo Bayuga swishes and swings, but the grinding demands of "Tomorrow 4 U'' leave him breathless.

N.C. native Horace Rogers sings a solid Tom Collins, an MIT grad and virtual philosopher. Yassmin Alers has all the requisite sex drive for Mimi, a beautiful junkie, and sings well for the most part, but the highest reaches of "Out Tonight'' escape her. Cristina Fadale's Maureen, Mark's affair-prone ex-girlfriend, is less sexy than ridiculous (making you wonder how she could have seduced so many), but perfectly parodies performance art in "Over the Moon.''

Christian Mena as Roger, the musician struggling to accept himself, has a decent voice and chiseled good looks. But his carping voice and pouty attitude are all wrong for what is supposed to be a romantic and tragic figure.

It doesn't really matter. Any singer who plays Roger is bound to fail because the score quits on him before the show ends.

Roger works throughout the show, which spans a year, on one song, a song Larson used as metaphor for artistic achievement in the face of death. And when Roger sings it, "Your Eyes'' turns out to be the worst song in the show.

Moments later, piling worse onto bad, Larson made the fatal mistake of monkeying too much with "La Boheme's'' story, replacing true tragedy with a cliched near-death experience.

As brightly as it sometimes burns, "Rent'' ultimately disappoints.

Maybe that's OK. Maybe that's the best we can shoot for in life: incomplete success of one degree or the other. As Larson himself observes: We mortals don't own anything, we only rent.