Postcard from Abroad Guest Column

For once German producers have been very quick at acquiring the rights to a Broadway show, so we are the third country in Europe only where Jonathan Larson's Rent is playing (after London and Finland). Before I begin, let me confess that I am a "Renthead" - I loved this show from the very first moment I heard about it, even before I had heard one note of the score. Why? Because I think that Rent makes a difference and brings a fresh breeze into a musical scene that has been dominated by through-composed musicals based on old books or movies for far too long. Now don't scream at me "But Rent is based on La Boheme, too!" I know that. But I think that despite the same background, Rent stands very much on its own, just like Miss Saigon manages to tell its own tale far away from its Madame Butterfly-background. But for some years, every "classic" novel seemed to have been turned into a musical - whether it was Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Jekyll & Hyde, Dracula, Ragtime - or foreign classics like Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Nothing wrong with all these musicals, but personally I was wondering whether it was really impossible to deal with modern life on a stage - the only musical dealing with contemporary issues was Willy Russell's Blood Brothers, a very British show that ranks among my favourites. And despite its moving, sad tale, the music was not really different from all the other scores - but then Mr Russell is chiefly a playwright and not a composer. For a while, I was even determined to write a "modern life"-musical myself, but alas, composing is not what I'm good at (anyone who thinks he can write good rock songs, please e-mail me, maybe we can join forces).

So when I heard about Rent's triumphant opening in New York, I knew at once that this was the musical I had been dreaming to write myself. A musical that doesn't tell us about the woes of phantoms, hunchbacks, vampires or other unlikely creatures, or of the fates of the poor in other centuries, but about people that live here and now and face the same problems we all face in one way or another. I got the CD as soon as it came out and subsequently played it to death on my stereo until I knew all the lyrics by heart. I love musicals from classics like Oklahoma! to modern day-shows like Ragtime, but I also love rock music and Rent at last combined these two things into a wonderful score with rousing chorus numbers, fast rock songs and moving ballads.

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Having drooled over the CD for two years I was half-crazy with joy when I heard that the male stars of the Broadway Cast - Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia - were coming to reprise their roles in the London production, where they would be joined by a local cast. I booked tickets for the first show after the opening night and when I left the Shaftesbury Theatre after the show, I was an emotional wreck. Of course I had been suffering with other musical heros, too, shed tears for the Phantom or laughed with Danny and Sandy in Grease, but this had been a very special experience for me, as I have never before felt so strongly drawn to characters on stage. It appeared to me as if they were no singers playing a role, but real friends, whom I could join at their table any minute to talk to them. I cried with Collins, when he buried Angel and I cried with Roger, when he was about to lose Mimi as these deaths were far more realistic and more haunting than a contrived end such as Kim's suicide in Miss Saigon. I also found the show's message - No day but today - very inspiring and tried to learn from it, by sharing more love and feelings with my friends and I went back to see Rent in London during my next trip.

When I heard that it was due to open in D�sseldorf early this year, I accepted the news with very mixed feelings. First and foremost there was an uneasy feeling whether Larson's rock music would translate very well into German at all. And when I heard who would be responsible for the German translation, I was convinced that this production would be doomed to failure. Most translators remain in the background, their names often not more than a single line in the programme. Not so with Heinz-Rudolf Kunze, a moderately successful German singer who had scored some chart hits in the 80's and was - for a reason still unclear to me - approached to translate Les Miserables for the Vienna production 1987. Being a star in his own right, he liked to push himself into the foreground, although I already thought back then, that his translation left a lot to be desired, being full of very stiff, wooden phrases and expressions no person in his sane mind would use. But if I had thought that Les Miserables had been a one-off mistake by the producers, I learnt otherwise seven years later, when he translated Miss Saigon into German - and now everyone agreed that this translation was the worst thing that had ever been heard on a German stage. Still he was allowed to go on and translated Lloyd-Webber's Joseph for the Essen production before being approached for Rent.

Another suspicion of mine was confirmed, when the cast list was first published and I counted barely three German names among the leading performers - Alex Melcher as Mark, Irina Alex as Maureen and Anna-Tania Horn as Joanne. So a show which was very difficult to understand anyway, would again be "graced" by the presence of many foreign performers whose German veered between awkward and downright incomprehensible. Hence I was more than just mildly sceptical when we went to see this German production of Rent now, but then - he who expects nothing cannot be disappointed, we like to say around here.

The building which is now called Capitol Theatre, had been a tramway depot for decades and when the council of D�sseldorf smelled the big musical bucks, got transformed into a "dinner theatre", where people could sit and dine at tables while watching a musical revue - if the prices hadn't killed their appetite already. A rather bad self-made production called Hollywood Dream followed, before the Vienna production of Grease moved in - and stayed for two very successful years. There were still traces of the pink Grease period in some areas of the theatre, but most walls of the foyer had been painted black and as the whole building with its brick walls breathes something like an "Off-Broadway" atmosphere which is far more suitable for Rent than those shiny new concrete blocks with their expensive furnishings that had been built for other musicals.

The stage appeared to me a bit too large for the rather intimate setting of Rent, but maybe I was biased there because of my memories of London. The production, directed by Martha Banta and choreographed by Schele Williams, was almost identical to the London one, except for some costumes (by Cheesha Gayden), but the only times I noticed differences were the hideous new clothes Angel was forced to wear and the absence of Mimi's blue vinyl pants in her Out tonight-number. Alex Melcher, who played Mark, had been given fake glasses to wear and I feared that he had been trimmed to play a carbon copy of Anthony Rapp's Mark, but luckily he was able to find his own approach to the role nonetheless. West End-Star John Partridge, now mostly known for playing the Rum Tum Tugger in the Cats-video, played Roger and although I know that nobody will ever match my memories of the singular Adam Pascal, John came dangerously close. His German wasn't always easy to understand (which, in view of the awful translation might be better after all), but it was clear that - unlike many other foreign performers here - he knew precisely what he was singing and put so much feeling into his songs that he already made me cry during One song glory, not to mention Your eyes in the end!

Mimi was played by a Dutch newcomer, Peti van der Velde, who also won me over very quickly with her stunning performance and wonderful voice. She didn't only rock the house with Out tonight, but also brought so incredibly much emotion to her performance, breaking my heart as well as her own, when she sang Goodbye love to Roger.

When Maureen and Joanne were on stage, the advantage of having German performers around, became obvious though, because the chemistry between those two was the best of all the couples involved. The Tango: Maureen between Anna-Tania's Joanne and Alex's Mark was another highlight of the evening. The weak point of the show were sadly Collins and Angel, whom I had both loved very much in London. Angel was played by Pheton D. Quirante of Filipino origin and he was simply too small, slender and fragile to convince as a drag queen - he was "cute" and did a good job, but he just didn't look like a man in female attire. Even weaker though was David Michael Johnson who played Collins and was the only one to really infuriate me. He came to Germany as early as 1989 when he took over Electra in the German production of Starlight Express, before moving on to Miss Saigon, where he understudied and played John. He is in Germany for ten years now and he still sings with a really strong accent - these are things that only make me angry. If they like this country enough to make it their home, is it too much to ask to learn to sing in decent German? Others who have been here for the same time (or much shorter) speak the language fluently by now! Neither was he able to transport something of Collins' inner warmth, that seemed to have come from very deep within in Jesse L. Martin's performance. Percy Duke, who played Benny, was equally uncomfortable with singing in German, so I guess that many people who don't know the CD or the plot, couldn't really understand the "conflict" between him and his former room-mates.

Still I think that altogether the producers have managed to assemble a very good cast and I'd like to see them again in half a year or so, when they have settled more into their roles and maybe got better at singing in German. Hearing John Partridge and Peti van der Velde, I only wished to hear them singing the same songs in English. My initial suspicion proved right, too, for most of the songs didn't really work in German and Mr Kunze's translation was - like always - somewhere between banal and fatally embarrassing. The damage he did to the very moving song Without you was irreparable - it sounded like a sickly-sweet love song now, completely losing the deeper meaning that doesn't refer to being "without you" in terms of quarreling lovers but of being separated by death.

Mimi's catchphrase Would you light my candle? was turned into typical cheap patter you hear in bars late in the evening, sounding only plump and not sexy at all and there were many more things I noticed but can't list here now. Considering the fact that not one of the shows he translated did very well here, while meeting great success everywhere else in the world, I really wonder why producers keep employing this man, who lacks every fibre of self-criticism and actually loves to push himself into the foreground in TV-interviews and such.

Altogether I think that Rent in Germany is not as amazing as the recently opened Jekyll & Hyde in Bremen, but still better than many other musicals that have opened here in the last years and the wonderful cast is definitely worth the price of a ticket - which are comparatively cheap, although German producers have decided not to do "the line" or "the lottery" as there is a 50% reduction available for students on most seats. If it fails here, the blame will have to be on the audience - German musical audiences consist mostly of "package tourists" travelling to the theatres in coaches, wanting to see glitzy, bright fairy tales like Starlight Express and Cats, which are both still going strong after 11 and 13 years respectively. But having seen many young people giving a standing ovation at curtain call, I'm carefully optimistic that the word may spread and enough younger ones feel attracted enough to come and see Rent. I'll certainly go back at some point!

Any comments? Nikki would be glad to hear from you.

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