RENT'S DUE
The Globe and Mail, Saturday, December 6th, 1998
by Michael Posner
Warren Grill has seen Cats and Les Mis. Warren Grill is homeless. Warren
Grill has traveled through Europe, South America, the Caribbean. He
sleeps outdoors, in an alleyway, under five blankets. Warren Grill has a
degree in horticulture from Guelph University. Today, he ate a donut and
two eggs, and drank two cups of coffee.
Once, he had $20,000 in the bank. Tonight, Grill, 39 years old, stands
on Toronto's King Street West, with a throwaway cup containing .35 cents
and a hand-drawn cardboard sign that reads "Homeless Please help if you
can. God bless." Under the beckoning neon of expensive restaurants and
theatres named for princesses, the patrons come and go. The temperature
is sub-zero. The wind is wicked. His eyes run.
The stark polarities of modern civilization, of which Warren Grill's
unhappy life might be illustrative, will be vividly expressed tomorrow
evening at the Royal Alexandra Theatre with the long-awaited Canadian
premiere of Jonathan Larson's Rent, the most celebrated musical of the
decade.
Now 20 months into its still-sold-out run on Broadway, the show depicts
a world not typically associated with the Great White Way: the
contemporary demimonde of hungry, AIDS-plagued, drug-addicted,
rent-starved denizens of New York's East Village. There's even a chorus
that Grill would recognize instantly - freezing homeless people, singing
ironic parodies of Christmas songs, "How time flies/When compassion
dies. . . No candy canes/No loose change. . . 'Cause Santa Claus ain';t
coming/No room at the Holiday Inn."
Liberally adapted from La Boheme, Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera, Rent's
story line traces love and death among a bohemian commune of straight,
gay, bisexual, and cross-dressed filmmakers, musicians, dancers and
artistes. Larson, once asked to condense his work into a single
sentence, said simply that it was about "a community celebrating life,
in the face of death and AIDS, at the turn of the century."
In Puccini's days, the stage allowed boys to meet girls. In Rent, boys
meet girls, girls meet girls, boys meet boys dressed as girls. They fall
in love, struggle, quarrel, reconcile - fused by a carpe diem anthem of
hope, delivered with urgent rock rhythms and gospel intensity.
"There's only now. There's only here," they sing. "No other road. No
other way. No day but today."
So here is gritty bohemia served up to polished Bay Street. Here's a
show that savages mainstream values, performed largely for audiences
that hold them transcendent. A musical about people rich chiefly in
idealism, delivered to people rich principally in property. A brilliant
commercial vehicle that has spawned a Bloomingdale's boutique, generated
multi-million-dollar record and film deals, and made millions more for
its producers, directors and casts, all by appropriating - some might
even say exploiting - the anti-capitalist ethic of the street. Profit
margins on Rent, in face, are better than those for Broadway
megamusicals, because while ticket prices are comparable, its production
costs - with its minimalist, low-tech sets and low-budget talent - are
dramatically lower.
"There's a tension there," conceded Michael Greif, who has directed
every production of the show. "And tension can be interesting. I
reconcile it by being pleased that the greatest number of people are
able to see it, whoever they are, including some who do not have a lot
of money." (As in New York, two front rows of orchestra seats are being
made available daily for $20 apiece.)
The cast, too, is accurately aware of Rent's implicit contradictions. "I
have a hard time with it, " said Jenifer Aubry, a 25-year-old Quebec
singer and actress. "Maybe these people who are paying $80 a ticket will
have their eyes opened a little."
If the actors are doing their jobs, maintains Chad Richardson, who plays
Mark, the show's narrator, "we're going to educate these people in a way
they've never been educated before."
Indeed, you could argue that if the Royal Alexandra's cashmere
demographic is out-of-sync with life in the "cold Bohemian hell"
portrayed on stage, it is precisely such audiences that are most in need
of having their consciousness updated - and their consciences pricked.
As Richardson noted, "If it were homeless people coming to see Rent
every night, I don't think it would be serving the right purpose."
The humanitarian message has had an effect on the cast, at least. "I've
always paid the squeegee men," said Karen LeBlanc (Joanne), "But being
in the show has made me stop and appreciate things even more. We're not
taking our pay cheques and shoving them down to the bottom of our
pockets."
After a preview performance last week, the troupe repaired to McDonald's
for a late-night snack. Outside, there were kids on the street,
freezing. One of the actors instinctively took off her gloves and gave
them away.
The Mirvish organization has also responded to the show' subtext,
staging previews as fund-raising event for various charities. But when
the Mirvishes proposed slashing ticket prices to $15 at one dress
rehearsal performance to raise funds for sick children, the New York
producers demurred. They also nixed the Canadian Foundation for AIDS
Research's sale of red ribbons to Royal Alex patrons, arguing,
foundation officials said, that audiences buying charity tickets for
previews had already paid a premium for their seats.
But you can say this for Rent: however commercial it has become, it did
not start out that way. It started in a tiny, 150-seat theatre in the
East Village, playing to its own kind. "It wasn't built to please
everyone or make money," said Michael Greif, "but to do justice to the
people it was written about - homeless people, and especially the
struggling, immature young people in the play. To depict them as human."
By now, the origins of Rent are the stuff of show-biz legend. The legend
of composer and librettist Larson: suburban, White Plains theatrical
prodigy transplanted to squalid SoHo flat, struggling to marry rock
music to Broadway, working as a waiter, watching friends die of AIDS. Of
the long years of rejection, including one damned-with-faint-praise,
put-down by his Broadway idol, Stephen Sondheim. Of the score's welcome
reception in 1992 at the non-profit New York Theatre Workshop, followed
by two more year of collaborative re-tooling. Of how Larson, on the
night of the show's final dress rehearsal at NYTW, had gone home, boiled
water for tea, and died - just 35 years old - of an aortic aneurysm that
had been misdiagnosed by two sets of emergency room physicians. And of
the phenomenon that Rent instantly became, vaulting to Broadway in
April, 1996, then touring shows, and soon, Hollywood (in a film version
to be directed, if is rumoured, by Martin Scorsese.)
In the United States, the show has won virtually every available
citation (Pulitzer Prize, Tony, Drama Desk, Obie, Outer Critics Circle).
It has been lauded by critics tripping over superlatives ("the most
exuberant and original musical this decade" - Time magazine; "Brilliant"
- Newsweek; "As close to op culture as opera gets" - New York Times).
And it has been long and lustily cheered by sold-out houses on Broadway,
where it is still playing, and in Boston, Chicago, and La Jolla, Calif.
Thousands of people, it is said, have seen it several times.
What makes it work? Ultimately, the emotional tug of words and music, as
delivered by actors intimately, personally, in tune with the material.
As to the American productions, the Mirvishes (50-50 partners with the
original New York producers) have opted largely for fresh-faced,
multi-racial talent - strong vocally, but without much background to
professional musical theatre. It's what director Greif calls "the real
factor."
The Toronto cast includes several blacks, one Puerto Rican, one actor
who is half-Italian, half-Colombian and one who is half-Israeli,
half-Ojibway. The upside potential for this tactic is enormous, an
opportunity to mold a company of no-names into an organic unit, armed
with the uncorrupted idealism of the young, free of the ego and bad
habits of some more established performer. Although the formula has been
proven to work, a downside remains - one or more actors may not cut it.
"That is the risk," Greif allowed. "Can you get someone there, to the
place that the project demands? But Rent was born out of taking risks.
Jonathan's whole life was about taking risks on the stage, and I want to
take risks in my work as well."
And here's another risk - that performers unaccustomed to the demands of
eight shows a week may not have the necessary endurance. Chad
Richardson, for example, fell ill this week and missed a few previews.
For many cast members, the acting was a long stretch. Not until the end
of the third week of rehearsals, recalled Richardson, did he "start to
open up and act. Until then, I was frozen, intimidated, screwing up
every line. I'd go home a mess, because I simply didn't think I could do
it."
Karen LeBlanc also wrestled demons of self-doubt. "I thought, What am I
doing here? Am I going to be able to pull this off?" It wasn't until
technical rehearsals that it started to come together for me."
Still, none of these folks are exactly amateurs. Luther Creek (Roger)
blessed with extraordinary vocal equipment, appeared in Rent's national
touring company. Krysten Cummings (Mimi) has starred in dozens of
professional productions in Europe and America. Richardson, a native of
Newfoundland, has just released he second album of pop songs. Karen
LeBlanc has staged her show of Tina Turner impersonations around the
world.
But most of the cast is also familiar with want - physical, emotional,
economic. Danny Blanco (Collins) lost the fingers of his left hand to a
sheet-metal press at the age of 17 and has struggled financially. Jai
Rodriguez (the cross-dressing Angel), at 18 the youngest Rent performer,
hasn't seen his father since hid third birthday party. Rodriguez, one of
the original so-called Rentheads who lined up five times for $20 seats
and snuck in to the second act dozen times, also lost an aunt, uncle and
cousin to AIDS. Richardson, who has a degree from a Paris cooking
school, financed his CDs with savings, a back loan and borrowing from
his father. Aubry, who for two years starred in Chambres En Villes, a
prime-time soap opera in Quebec, was working as a waitress when she
auditioned for the part. LeBlanc, a self-described teenage rebel, fended
largely for herself from the time she was 12.
Of course, Rent is not the first musical to successfully mine
counter-cultural ores, light year removed from Oklahoma, Brigadoon and
other more conventional properties. The landmark Hair (1968), for
example, spoke eloquently about sex and drugs and grooviness to a
generation of sixties rebels. A Chorus Line (1976) chronicled the
backstage lives of wannabe hoofers auditioning for a Broadway show.
Elizabeth Swados's lesser-known Runaways (1978) even focused on trouble
adolescents on the lam. And long before then, Leonard Bernstein's West
Side Story (1957) had adapted the Romeo and Juliet saga to the tribal
clash of New York's street gangs.
But Rent's themes are at a more topical and more complete level. Its
rapid-fire libretto offers a smorgasbord of contemporary cultural
references - anorexia, Prozac, Maya Angelou, smack, T-cell counts,
Captain Crunch, tent cities, Doc Martens, Absolut vodka, AZT, curry
vindalou. One day, of course, these will be remote as references to
[something].
But not to worry. That and other musicals have demonstrated the
commercial power of nostalgia.
But for now, Rent doesn't have to reply on nostalgia - it is the hottest
of hot properties. In New York, theatrical titans waged a mighty battle
for the Broadway rights, ultimately won by the Nederlanders, eminent New
York producers. In Toronto, both the Mirvish organization and its arch
rival, Garth Drabinsky's Livent Inc., wanted the show, badly. Mirvish
had planned to stage it last October at the Elgin Theatre. Dranbinsky's
people booked the venue and indicated that they had the rights tied up.
But David Mirvish, meanwhile, had dinner in New York with Rent producers
Jeffery Seller and Kevin McCollum, with whom he had previously worked,
and was given an hour to decide whether he wanted the show. He didn't
need the hour.
With their own Royal Alex theatre committed to other productions, the
Mirvishes approached the Elgin and challenged Livent's option, putting
down $1 million. The Elgin, notifying Livent of the challenge, and
asking a firm commitment that Drabinsky's organization had secured the
rights to Rent. Livent then acknowledge that it did not have the show,
but claimed that its oral agreement with the Elgin's management was for
either Rent or a re-staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour
Dreamcoat.
Messiness ensued. The Elgin agreement took the view that the theatre had
been reserved exclusively for Rent, whoever had the rights had the
venue. Drabinsky begged to differ. Well, not beg exactly. Claiming
parable harm, he sued the Elgin for $21 million, then sought and won
interim emergency court injunction barring use to the theatre until
matter was resolved. The Elgin's appeal failed.
Unable to wait, the Mirvishes pulled the show, but the conflict delayed
Rent's arrival in Toronto by a year. The Elgin subsequently counter-sued
Livent for $9 million siting intentional interference with the theatre's
business relations. Both suits are now dormant.
The Elgin-Livent dispute isn't Rent's only legal entanglement. The
Larson family has filed suit against the two New York City hospitals who
incorrectly diagnosed their son's chest pains as influenza and food
poisoning. And dramaturg Lynn Thompson, who claims that between a third
and a half of the show's final script is her work, is appealing a recent
District Court ruling that Rent is not a joint endeavor and that,
therefor, she is not entitled to royalties. Thompson received $2,000
(US) for her work; the Larson estate is now estimated to be worth about
$250 million.
Larson chose the musical's title deliberately, playing off the double
meaning of the word. Ironically, the lives of many of those associated
with the show have indeed been tossed asunder.
Warren Grill steps back out in King Street's cold canyon. He stands
silently beside a parking meter, trying to make eye contact with
pedestrians. He is grateful to Ed Mirvish, who owns several
neighbourhood restaurants, for allowing him to occupy his square foot of
pavement - free, as if were, or rent. "I've actually seen Ed three
times," Grill said cheerfully, "He's given me loose change every time."
Would he like to see Rent? "I'd love to. But what I'd really like is a
job."