BOHEMIANISM ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN NEW YORK
The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 1997
by Janice Kennedy
TORONTO - In February 1896, 37-year-old Giacomo Puccini set a cast of
free-spirited characters on Turin's grand-opera stage, giving the world
the lasting gift of his beautiful La Boheme. Filled with Puccini's
unerringly romantic sensibilities and music that is by turns haunting,
heartbreaking and rippling with spirited amusement, the now-classic
opera was the loose adaptation of a story by draffted by French novelist
Henri Murger in Scenes de la vie de Boheme. A group of rag-tag bohemians
deals with life, love, tragedy and art - the great adventures - as they
struggle to survive in Paris.
Jump ahead exactly a century, to February 1996. The same spirit, with
substantially the same cast of characters in the same setting, is
reincarnated.
Jonathan Larson's Rent is born.
The splashy contemporary musical, which updates the opera's original
characters and switches the setting to New York's Lower East Village,
made it's current fin de siecle debut on the off-Broadway stage just
hours after Larson died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm, 10 days before
his 36th birthday. It went on to win a host of honours, including the
1996 Tony Award for Best Musical and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Now Rent has its Canadian premiere, courtesy of David and Ed Mirvish as
well as the show's original New York producers. It officially opened
last night at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre after two weeks of
preview performances, performances that have won it an army of youthful
enthusiasts who line up overnight in King Street's cold to get a crack
at the next day's rush tickets for the special bench seating in the
front row that has become a Rent tradition.
It is a good gesture on the part of the producers. Not only does it
guarantee exuberance in the audience, it also lets less affluent young
people in for prices they can afford. And Rent is nothing if not a show
for contemporary young people.
Just as La Boheme was Puccini's musical for the '90s, so is Rent
Larson's, albeit for a different set of '90s. An eye-popping,
ear-splittingly different set of '90s.
Rent is LOUD, and IN-YOUR-FACE. And, not to mince words, FUN.
A rock opera in every sense of the pharase, it is non-stop music (much
of it a complex swirl of interesting melody with dark swatches of
dissonance) delivered in vocals and choreography apparently fueled by
boundless reserves of raw energy. And talent.
The loose tale of a group of twentysomethings living in a run-down
building at 11th Street and Avenue B, Rent explores relationships at the
end of the millennium: of life to art, of mainstream society to the
fringe, of people to people - gay, straight, asexual. But it is an
exploration that is also celebration and, ultimately, affirmation of all
the things that are most noble in the human spirit, from commitment and
active concern to sacrifice and love in a frosty world.
It is Larson's triumphant irony that these are expressions of a
community relegated to the fringes, where they are usually dismissed for
a host of reasons - their squeegees, their piercing and tattoos, their
impoverished lifestyle in the name of art, their unconventional
expressions of sexuality. Rent gives them the respect that comes with
the centre-stage status.
Nor should the irony of Larson's clearly intended La Boheme parallel be
overlooked: These fringe players are the same people we romanticize and
respect in a late-Victorian setting - and deserve no less in their
real-life contemporary context, where consumption has been replaced by
AIDS and the poverty has a North American urban reek to it.
(Nor should the final irony be lost on Rent theatre-goers, shelling out
their $75 a pop. Life meets art right outside the doors of the Royal
Alex as a few enterprising homeless guys hold signs asking for help to
have a happy Christmas. It mirrors one of the show's recurring musical
themes, in which a group of homeless New Yorkers sing of Christmas bells
ringing, though not for them.)
The Canadian Rent does fine and polished justice to Larson's vision and
the complex musical and choreographic demands of the show - as you might
expect under director Michael Greif, who has been with the show from the
beginning and who staged it on Broadway.
A dynamite ensemble supports a stunning group of principals, all the
more impressive because most of this mix of Canadian and American
performers are relatively unknown. They likely won't be for long.
Lovers Roger and Mimi, a rock musician and an exotic dancer, are the
creations of Americans Luther Creek and Krysten Cummings - great voices,
and presence with a capital P. Their Without You, sung against the
powerful backdrop of an AIDS death scene, gives poignancy a rare power.
But Presence is apparently infectious, judging by the work of
Newfoundland musician Chad Richardson in the pivotal role of Mark,
filmmaker and narrator. His Tango Maureen, a whimsical piece performed
with the girlfriend to whom he has lost his former girlfriend, is filled
with the high-octane fuel that propels the show into overdrive in its
superior second act.
As Angel, drag queen with the heart of gold, New York native Jai
Rodriguez brings an athletic grace to an engaging portrait, while
Montreal native Danny Blanco, as his lover Collins, is a soulfully deep
voice with spirit to match. Joanne, Maureen's lesbian girlfriend gets a
warm, rich portrayal from Torontonian Karen LeBlanc.
And just when you think the energy level can go no higher, Quebec singer
Jenifer Aubry proves the sky's the limit. As performance artist Maureen,
Aubry is a musical spitfire with finely tuned comic sensibilities. Her
Over The Moon, an over-the-top protest piece about the slumlord trying
to evict them all, brings the house down.
As for the show's ensemble pieces - Seasons of Love (the show's best
song, the one you hum on your way out), the thematic Rent, the stylish
La Vie Boheme (a joyful smorgasbord of modern life) - they are nothing
less than glorious, sweet harmony in rock'en powerhouse delivery.
Rent is, in short, an evening of memorable theatre: interesting music,
cleaver lyrics an thought-provoking messages that pack an emotional
wallop worlds beyond standard rock fare.
The production is scheduled to run in Toronto six months before
embarking on a national tour that will include Ottawa.
If you're not big on deferent gratification, you might want to jump in
the car right now and hit the 401.