From Philly...

'RENT' LIVES UP TO ITS HYPE

Originally in Philadelphia Business Journal, issue June 28, '96

Written by Nell Silverman

Found at EBSCO.com

Well, you've read all about it, seen the ads, the covers of the newsweeklies, maybe even

watched the Tony Awards for something other than a possible sighting of the pouting Julie

Andrews. The question is: "What is this 'Rent' thing and is it worth all the fuss?" Fuss and

awards, of course, are not reliable indicators of quality: Witness the popularity of "Cats,"

"Kiss of the Spider Woman" and "La Cage aux Folles," all of them Best Musical winners

against much worthier competitors. So, when "Rent" took home both the Tony and Pulitzer

Prize this year, a feat not accomplished by a musical since the late, great "Chorus Line,"

it's worth asking just what's up with the Great White Way's sudden willingness to acquire a

 little rock-musical grime.

"Rent," for those of you who haven't heard, is Jonathan Larson's modern rendering of "La

Boheme" by way of the downtown East Village performance art subculture. The story

behind "Rent," unfortunately, is as tragic as the play's story, with the musical's creator

Larson, after fighting for years to get his work completed and staged, dying suddenly of a

ruptured aneurysm the night before its dress rehearsal at the New York Theatre Workshop.

The hype that jettisoned the play along its ironic course through a sold-out downtown run,

to a Broadway stage, laden with multiple accolades, I am happy report to you, for once is

entirely justified. "Rent" is a fresh and wholly original burst of musical energy into a

theater scene that desperately needed just this kind of transfusion, if not a total

 transplant. It is raw and daring, melodic and memorable, stripped-down and extravagant

-- a compelling contemporary vision of bare-bones elegance.

For its Broadway incarnation, "Rent" has taken over the Nederlander Theatre, at the lower

edge of the theater district on 41st Street, a previously vacant house that has been semi-

renovated to create the closest thing to a workshop-like space in the region. While it may

seem a bit contrived to imagine a ramshackle performance space in the shadow of "Sunset

Boulevard," the concept, once you're settled into your seat, works. The stage, designed by

Paul Clay, is a multilevel industrial construction piece, a minimalist erector set convincingly

frayed at the edges. Onto this scene straggle the musical's characters, Larson's

representatives of the current-day bohemian world, an assortment of artists, addicts,

homeless wanderers and drag queens, all of them as much outsiders as those in Puccini's

 original creation.

But that's where the similarities end, much to the chagrin, I'm afraid, of the Upper East

Side types on display in the audience the night I saw "Rent." Somehow these misplaced

barons of industry and their bejeweled doyennes must have been expecting some hot-

ticket version of a working-class "Phantom:" a sing-along, big-set extravaganza with a

little edge. So be warned: "Rent" is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting musical

works to be seen in a very long while, but it's rough, it's rock and it pulls no punches.

Instead of the ravages of tuberculosis that afflict the characters of "La Boheme," many of

the musical's denizens are HIV-positive or AIDS-afflicted, including the heroine Mimi, who

is both a prostitute and a junkie.

"Rent" is operatically staged by director Michael Greif, the narrative flowing from musical

number to musical number with little in the way of interceding dialogue. There are

humorous riffs on technology and Voice mail thrown in, led by one of the two male leads,

Anthony Rapp as Mark, an experimental video artist/documentarian/historian (Larson,

wisely, kept his tongue firmly in cheek while elaborating on this story of his own arts

scene). There is not a single "name" in the entire cast, though that certainly will change as

this supremely talented company gains wider exposure and deserved notoriety. Those to

watch out for, in addition to Rapp, are Adam Pascal, a former band member in his first

acting role, as Mimi's love interest, the similarly infected musician Roger, as well as the

full-throated and magnificent Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mimi herself. Wilson Jermaine

Heredia, as the dying drag queen Angel, proves himself the play's best actor in a

wrenching, moving performance that garnered him a well-earned Featured Actor Tony

Award.

Singling out, though, while it acknowledges the wealth of talent on display, under-plays

the powerful ensemble work that "Rent" represents: There is not a false note here, no hum

melody, no misplaced lyric.

This is a heartfelt, complete work of both tragic depth and mythic importance, filled with

songs and emotions that linger. I might quibble that some of the characters' development

could have been a little better fleshed out, but it's minor. Accept that the world that "Rent"

portrays is harsh, and it only makes sense that its music, its characters and its visions are

frequently jarring, all the time still keeping their beauty razor-sharp and metallically

brilliant. This is no sugar-coated version of a child's fairy tale, but the ragged telling of a

very adult nightmare. Miss it at your own peril -- if you an pry out a ticket somewhere.