THE TRAGICALLY HIP
from Maclean's Magazine, December 1997
by John Bemrose
As the audience takes its seats for Rent, the 1996 Broadway hit that
just opened at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre, the uncurtained stage
gives the definite impression that the show is far from ready. On one
side, musicians are idly tunning up under a large platform. And there is
no scenery in sight: a catwalk crosses in front of a brick wall, while a
few red folding chairs are scattered around a long metal table. Nearby
looms an enormous abstract sculpture containtin, among other things,
pieces of a shopping cart and several bicycles. It looks like a windmill
rearranged by a hurricane.
And yet, oddly, the apparent dishevelment of the scene generates a
tremendous sense of suspense. It feels as though something momentous is
about to happen here - an effect enhanced by the great vertical depth of
the stage, into which overhead lights shine like the moon into a canyon.
When performers finally begin to drift in - all of them wearing tiny
headset mikes that reinforce the sense that this is only a rehearsal -
the suspense builds palpably. Bye the time they get through their first
bit of dramatic business and burst into song, there can be little doubt
that something original and exciting is under way.
Rent is triumph, and its rough-and-ready style is crucial to its impact.
Inspired by Puccini's 1896 opera, La Boheme, it focuses on a community
of impoverished young artists and street people in Manhattan's East
Village. The musical is a hymn to the brevity and provisionality of
lives threatened by AIDS and drug addiction. As the symbolism of Paul
Clay's set suggests, Rent's characters are like performers in a show
that may never get to open. They must make do with the present moment,
in a world where success may amount to defying the shadows of mortality
with a hectic joie de vivre.
The plot is a hodgepodge of lovers' quarrels, with the unsual twist (at
least for a mainstream musical) that several of the lovers are of the
same sex. For example, Maureen (Jenifer Aubry) is a self-centred,
bisexual performance artist who leaves her filmmaker boyfriend Mark
(Chad Richardson), for Joanne (Karen LeBlanc), a lawyer slumming as a
stage manager in the Village. But the show's combinations of straight
and gay are much less important than the youthful sexuality and
exuberance that resonates through Larson's music. Larson - who died
tragically of an aortic aneurysm at 35 on Jan. 25, 1996, just a day
before Rent was to began its New York City previews - has poured a
thrilling vitality into his songs, from the touching ballad Without You
to the raunchy Out Tonight.
The 15 cast members deliver a performance that will be remembered for
years. Inputting together the Toronto show, the producers followed the
pattern established in New York: they held open auditions in the hopes
of snaring some relative unknowns - performers under 30 with great
voices but a raw, streetwise edge. In the end, they found Canadian for
four of the eight principal roles, and six to serve in the seven-member
chorus (the rest are Americans). However, the marketing hype that
suggests these people were plucked out of nowhere is misleading. Most of
the cast members have considerable professional experience as singers if
not as actors.
Newfoundland's Richardson, to mention one, has just released a CD of his
own compositions, The Legends of Brud.
But whatever their background, these young performers are riveting.
Among the Canadians, the feline Aubry from Montreal is a real discovery.
When she sings the loopy Over The Moon, she achieves the nearly
impossible balance of being sensuous and hilarious at the same time.
Other standouts include the intense Luther Creek as Roger, Mark's
roommate who is brooding over the AIDS-related death of his lover, and
Krysten Cummings as Mimi, the drug addict and exotic dancer who lures
him from his grief. Cummings' provocative, pole-hugging delivery of Out
Tonight has to be one of the most spellbindingly sexy routines since Mae
West asked W.C. Fields about his gun.
The only serious problem with Rent is its depiction of poor people. Most
of the principal roles feature middle-class kids on the lam from
respectability. No doubt most of them could lead more upscale lives if
they chose. But the street people in the chorus - the ones picking
through garbage cans - have no such option. And since they are
background players who never get to tell their stories, they are reduced
to the dubious status of local color. Rent is a splendid musical about
the agonies of love in the time of AIDS. But its superficial treatment
of poverty is unlikely to trouble anyone's social conscience. Witness
the behavior of the satisfied patrons as they let the theatre. Outside,
they were met by a street person carrying a sing that read "Help the
homeless have a Christmas." Business was not brisk.