'Rent' expected to draw large crowd
By Susannah Elliott, Entertainment Editor
February 14, 2006 | 11 a.m.
When “Rent” was first performed in 1996, its purpose was to represent a new generation in American musical theater at a time when Broadway was being dominated by revivals like “The King and I” and “Show Boat.” The creator of “Rent,” Jonathan Larson, took many story elements from his own life.
Throughout the seven years that Larson worked on the music and script for his musical, he lived in New York City’s East Village in a loft apartment. He and his roommates kept an illegal wood-burning stove for heat, and there was a bathtub in the middle of the kitchen. The buzzer in their apartment was broken, so visitors had to call from the street payphone for Larson and his roommates to throw keys down to them from an open window.
Larson and his friends were much like the eight friends the audience follows in “Rent.” They were struggling for enough money to keep their electricity on and for the success they could someday gain from their art. They watched helplessly as friends died from AIDS in a time when people were first gaining a new awareness and understanding of the disease.
Half of the main characters in “Rent” are HIV-positive. In fact, the disease is one of the main elements that unite the group. The play follows the ups and downs of the friends over the course of a year. The biggest lesson they learn is that no one is promised tomorrow. The musical preaches to live each day to its fullest because it may be your last.
Roger, one of the characters, is an HIV-positive musician who hopes to write one big hit before AIDS takes his life. He lives in a loft apartment like Larson’s, under his landlord friend Benny -- until Benny breaks his promise and actually asks for rent money. Benny was cast out of the group when he became rich and left the Bohemian lifestyle.
Also living in the apartment is Mark, a video nerd who serves as the narrator. Mark documents the group’s lives on film every moment he can, including when his ex-girlfriend, Maureen, incites a riot. Maureen is the type of person who tends to undervalue her relationships and has trouble keeping them monogamous. This realization is something that bonds Mark with Maureen’s current girlfriend, a lawyer named Joanne.
Roger’s former girlfriend committed suicide after the couple found out they had HIV, and Roger was hesitant to start a new relationship with someone he might infect. But when Roger meets Mimi, an erotic dancer and heroin addict, they reluctantly strike up a relationship after discovering they both have HIV.
The relationship that best represents the theme of “Rent,” however, is that of Collins and Angel. Collins, a recently fired professor at NYU, and Angel, a street-percussionist drag queen, possess the most loyal and loving relationship of any of the characters. Unfortunately, because of their non-traditional lifestyle, they encounter non-traditional dilemmas, as well.
After a decade on stage, “Rent” encompasses an artistic spirit still very much alive, despite the surrounding world that has continued to evolve. The topics that were fairly controversial for a Broadway musical in 1996 have now progressed to become more widely accepted and discussed. AIDS awareness has since risen considerably, and tolerance of homosexuality has also become more widespread. Jonathan Larson might be proud to say that his musical was a building block for such progressions in society.
Unfortunately, Larson was never able to see the tremendous success of his work. The night before “Rent” premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop, he attended the final dress rehearsal and went home to die of an aortic aneurysm. His sudden death at the age of 35 was and still is a sobering reminder of his play’s philosophy.
On Feb. 15, the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium Ticket Office is expecting every seat to be filled when Larson’s greatest work visits OU.
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Visit the official Rent Web site at: www.siteforrent.com