by Misha Berson
September 3, 1998

A season of love has just begun at the Moore Theatre, where the dynamo Broadway musical "Rent" is settling in for a 10-week stay.

Equipped with a high-octane cast of young singer-actors, a gritty junk-sculpture set, a roaring electric combo, and enough 100-proof passion to convert some serious doubters into believers, this fine-tuned road-runner version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock opera is up to speed.

There's no way to duplicate the magnum force "Rent" exerted in 1996, in its explosive Broadway debut. But two years later the show wears its age well in a tour edition closely supervised by original director Michael Greif.

Many in the audience will by now have chunks of writer-composer Jonathan Larson's best-selling score memorized, especially the glowing choral anthem, "Seasons of Love."

But you're likely to get the most out of "Rent" if you leave your preconceptions at the door and, to paraphrase one of its catchiest songs, take it for what it is.

That'll be tough, given all the over-hype about the show's thrift-store chic fashion sense, its re-creation of an ambi-sexual, downtown New York bohemian scene circa the early 1990s, and the untimely loss of the deeply gifted Larson. (He died suddenly in 1996, just before the show's first public performance.)

But if you can keep in mind that "Rent" is a lot of different, sometimes conflicting things - mushy romance, rock rave-up, raw AIDS drama, old-fashioned tuner - the show may well swoop you into the whirl of music, nonstop movement, humor and emotion that make it such a captivating ride - especially in the blazing first half.

Quickly, one gets pulled into a circle of 20-ish misfit characters struggling with love, illness and artistic/political idealism "in America at the end of the millennium."

Despite their slacker tendencies, these youths are more immediately compelling than the quainter starving artists of Puccini's "La Boheme," the 19th-century opera that "Rent" borrows from and aggressively updates.

"La Boheme" considers two pairs of lovers in down-and-out Paris; "Rent" zooms in on three, as observed by the show's narrator, the dorky-cool Lower East Side filmmaker Mark (Scott Hunt).

The punkish, HIV-positive rocker Roger (Adrian Lewis Morgan), Mark's morose roommate in a crumbling tenement "squat," enters a tempestuous affair with a sultry drug addict, Mimi (Julia Santana).

Flirtatious bisexual performance artist Maureen (Leigh Hetherington carries on an equally problematic romance with Joanne (Monique Daniels), a black lesbian lawyer.

Freelance computer-age philosophy prof Tom (Mark Leroy Jackson) and the endearing drag queen Angel (Andy Senor) are, for a twist, the most contented duo. But AIDS (in the days before the new life-extending drug therapy) cuts their bliss short.

The weaving of these three lovelines takes care of the soap-opera aspect of "Rent," which can get downright drippy at times, especially at the tear-jerking finale.

But Larson had more in mind than just romance among the trendies. "Rent" also evokes the uneasy alliance between artist squatters and the hard-core homeless, as both are displaced by gentrifying landlords.

And the show spoofs and questions the lure of high technology, with running jests about phone-answering machines, cell phones, film gear and "cyber arts."

Moreover, "Rent" echoes the '60s rock musical "Hair" and many other expressions of American social rebellion in its fervent plea for community - a community that embraces diverse individuals bound not by blood or commerce, but by sympathy, creativity and tolerance.

Larson was too hip not to temper his utopian romanticism with a little cynicism, however. Ergo, the rousing "La Vie Boheme" number celebrates life on the margins, while sending up its pretentions.

The score veers, too, from upbeat love song ("I'll Cover You"), to bluesy ode ("Take Me as I Am") to gushy ballad ("Without You") - a sonic eclecticism that is loud, diverting and rather jumbled.

"Rent" in Seattle features a capable, well-meshed 21-member cast, including veterans from other "Rent" companies and a few performers (i.e., Jackson and Morgan) who'll only play Seattle for a week before replacements arrive.

Of those signed on through the Moore run, the bewitching, achey-voiced Santana and delightful Senor impress strongly, as does Hunt's engaging Mark and Daniels' sure-voiced Joanne. Only Hetherington's cheerleader-gone-raunchy Maureen grates on you, particularly when she's over-selling her songs.

There are a few sound-balance problems to rectify in the Moore. But with its rock-punk cachet and relative intimacy, this is definitely the venue for "Rent."

As for the boho-style "Rent" helped popularize, it's there in surplus in Paul Clay's rugged set, Angela Wendt's trash-flash costumes and Blake Burba's vivid lighting. But remember, style ain't everything in this show. There's substance, too.