Theater review by Jerry Stein
Post staff reporter
3/25/98

''Rent,'' the musical that has won a truckload of awards including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize, arrived at the Aronoff Center Tuesday night looking much like a rock concert. It offers a powerful pop-rock score on a set full of lights, scaffolding and onstage band.

But ''Rent'' also comes with emotions. They march on the heart and ultimately stampede it.

This musical's '60s free-form predecessor, ''Hair,'' was anti-war and favored sexual liberation. ''Rent'' is more intimate. It looks at friendship, romance and personal success.

The show is a one-man job from the late Jonathan Larson, who died just before the New York opening in 1996. He wrote the book, lyrics and music. And he certainly has provided some rousing musical moments in a score that swings from heavy metal rock to big passionate ballads on to a tango.

''Rent,'' which is nearly sold out for its 16 performances through April 5, is regarded as the American musical that has rejected spectacle for feelings. In the process, it has broken the 16-year hold of British spectacle musicals on Broadway that began with ''Cats.''

Still, what seems to have reached audiences, including Tuesday night's standing and cheering crowd, is the concern and affection shared among a motley group of artists, the homeless and addicts living in New York's East Village. Yet, the premise of this driving, right-now musical, which celebrates enduring friendships, is not new but classic.

''Rent'' is inspired by Puccini's late 19th-century opera, ''La Boheme,'' based on Henri Murger's novel, ''Scenes from Bohemian Life.'' Murger's stories are accounts of loves and friendships among artists in Paris.

Borrowing from ''La Boheme,'' Larson achieves considerable empathy for his rather sad, downtrodden East Village characters.

There's ex-junkie Roger (Owen Johnston II) who has AIDS and wants to write one great song before he dies. He's in love with Mimi (Julia Santana), a dancer at an S&M bar. She is an addict and has AIDS.

The other romantic pairings include a gay male couple - Tom (Mark Leroy Jackson), who is in love with the generous and giving drag queen Angel (Andy Senor) - and a battling but strongly attached lesbian couple - performance artist Maureen (Leigh Hetherington) and her producer Joanne (played Tuesday night by substitute Jasmine M. Baird).

The narrator is the isolated videographer Mark (Kirk McDonald). He is taping a year in his friends' lives.

Like, ''La Boheme,'' ''Rent'' hinges on a mean landlord, Benny (D'Monroe), who wants to evict the artists so he can develop the property. But the focus is on the characters - their loves and fights, which come with a few four-letter vulgarities. The point is that love holds this extended family together.

Larson's first act takes its time introducing the couples and other secondary characters. The death of one character and the illness of Mimi in the second act restores whatever fragmentation was happening to the friends in the first act.

This celebration of relationships is expressed in some outstanding songs and deliveries from the cast. These include Mimi's and Roger's romantic ballad, ''Light My Candle,'' Mimi's raunchy tribute to wild times, ''Out Tonight,'' Angel's and Tom's love duet, ''I'll Cover You,'' and a big choral number that opens the second act, ''Seasons of Love.''

For all its energy, ''Rent'' is not quite the revolutionary musical that some critical commentaries would have us believe. It's more of a hybrid, a merging of rock concert (the singers use head mikes) with the traditional book musical that tells a story and the tragic emotions of operatic death scenes.

The structure of Larson's book also owes a debt to those hectically edited hospital and police TV series that tell several stories by using quick cuts from one scene to another. ''Rent's'' pacing reflects that. But because of its fidgety jumps from segment to segment, it's often difficult to follow and the high-volume sound often blurs the dialogue.

But go with ''Rent.'' It will take you someplace artistically and emotionally rewarding.