19 years after Rent’s final form Off-Broadway premier in 1996, simultaneously with its creator Jonathan Larson’s (book, music, and lyrics) untimely death, we’ve finally arrived at a point where it’s enough of a period piece we can view the piece more as a play. The attendant baggage of its status as a cultural phenomenon – its rabid adherents, the inevitable backlash – can be given less primacy of thought around the artifact. We’ve hit a generation of kids growing up wanting to act/direct/write who never didn’t know Rent. For context, this writer was 16 when it arrived and, briefly, became a musical that big swaths of pop culture engaged with.
Photo by Ed Syguda.
Rent – a rock opera riff on Puccini’s classic La Boheme – follows seven friends in the East Village over the span of a year in the late ’80s/early ’90s, after the introduction of AZT extended lives but before AIDS started to feel like less of a death sentence. Most of them orbit around the arts in one way or another. Mark Cohen (David Buergler), a filmmaker, and Roger Davis (Connor Allston), a songwriter and frontman, are roommates who serve the viewpoint characters. Maureen Johnson (Erin Ulman) is a performance artist, and Mark’s ex. Angel DuMott Schunard (Luke Stewart) is a percussionist and drag performer. Tom Collins (JT Wood), the heart of the show, is a young philosophy professor struggling with the constraints of academia while falling in love with Angel. Joanne Jefferson (Morgan Wood), a lawyer dating Maureen, is the example we see of someone making real money and doing real good in the world. Benny Coffin III (uncredited in the program except as part of the eight person ensemble) is the other side of the coin of making money, someone pulled away from his friends but who keeps hovering around and coming back, his actions drive much of the plot.
Melissa Lusher’s direction amps up the operatic quality of the piece. The stage (with intricate set design by Rob Johnson) is a wide canvas often with people moving up and down stairs, walking around the platforms in the back, putting human moments into relief against a larger crush of humanity. This approach works best on big, splashy numbers that use the entire cast and stage – like the opening, or the joyous “La Vie Boheme” number or scenes of heightened drama where the personal is mirrored by the outside world like “Christmas Bells” with its density of information and rapid-fire scene shifting, “Will I?” with Roger’s own breakdown echoed by the Life Support meeting on a riser above him or the heartbreaking tableau of “Without You.” Occasionally, this noise and this intensity lets the human-scaled parts of the work down, small moments with two characters where there’s no way to legitimately work in the outside world are relegated to a corner of the stage and seem swallowed up. This approach also emphasizes the parts of the work that were flaws in 1996 and are still not very good – in particular, the cringe-inducing interludes with homeless people and the drug dealer.
Photo by Ed Syguda.
What Lusher’s production gets and does well is how important the friendships are. At that stage in someone’s life, especially if you’re looking to find your voice and do something creative that touches someone else, your friends are your first – often, your only – audience. That sense of trying to impress one another, of trying to make these people whose tastes they know so intimately smile, is perfectly embodied here as the illuminating fire of the “Rent” and “La Vie Boheme” numbers and that energy reverberates throughout.
Having time and no money creates a crucible that forges passionate alliances and this sense of having survived with these people, amplified by the era these people are growing up in under the specter of death. Â The emotional core of the play – the run of the second act that starts with “Without You” and goes through “What You Own” is when this production soars, the warmth and hurt make everything glow. Not incidentally, these are the among the songs that highlight Larson’s greatest skill as a writer: gorgeous, spiky, overlapping harmonies. While there were some issues with muddy, indistinct sound in the performance I saw – low-end seemed to vanish, particularly on the male voices, and signature instrumental cues, I especially missed the guitar arpeggios on “What You Own” disappeared into gauze – those strong voices rising together still made my spine straighter.
The performances are a little uneven. Buergler’s Mark is beautifully sung but so aggressively demonstrative early it feels like the character is robbed of some of his finding-himself arc that peaks with  “La Vie Boheme.” Monica Brown’s “Mimi” as a dancer is astonishing, a physical performance that embodies the soul trapped by her compulsions, but falters on some of the singing like “Out Tonight.” Connor Allston’s “Roger” is phenomenal, maybe the best singing in a very strong cast and his desperate attempts to hide his fragility and the outpouring when he cracks, are heartbreaking and uncomfortable to watch. JT Wood – who wowed me in Clybourne Park – walks that fine balance of being an intellectual who craves a life of the body and society in his Collins with a striking, rich tenor voice. Luke Stewart’s Angel is a ball of electricity, the catalyst of the show with the most to do and he makes the most of every second he’s on stage.
A show that should really only be done by actors this age, this production doesn’t eschew the sweetly corny nature of the material or the deep, real ache underneath it. Despite some qualms, I walked out reminded of how much there is to love in Rent and this production does justice to the warts-and-all final statement of Jonathan Larson. There is a lot to be delighted by and, most importantly, this reminds us how much there is to be delighted by in life.
Rent runs through October 3rd with performances at 8:00pm Thursday-Saturday. For tickets and more info please visit Otterbein.edu.