Keeping up with ‘Rent’
The long-running hit has left Broadway, but it’s back on the road and headed to Shea’s with some original cast members in tow. Whether you’re a superfan or a ‘Rent’ rookie, our guide will get you ready for the show.
Bohemia might be dead, but “Rent” goes on. And on. The storied show, which closed on Broadway last September after 12 long years and 5,123 performances, will wind its way to Buffalo on Tuesday in a tour starring original Broadway cast members Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp.
In transposing Puccini’s “La Boheme” from 19th century Paris to mid-’90s Manhattan and infusing it with concerns about HIV/AIDS, drug abuse and the eroding freedoms of the avant garde, “Rent” spoke in revolutionary ways to the hopes and fears of an entire generation. In certain ways, “Rent” has aged visibly and in others it has remained as fresh and affecting as its first hyped-to-high-heaven off-Broadway performances in 1996.
Gentrification has changed Manhattan’s Alphabet City from a pseudo-bohemian enclave into yet another tract of overpriced apartments. Most artists have fled to the relative safety of Brooklyn and Astoria, where “Rent” would no doubt take place if it were written today. The continued threat of HIV/AIDS on this continent, thanks to today’s advanced life-extending treatments, has lost the sense of panic and hopelessness that accompanied it 13 years ago.
Still, the raw and powerful sentiment of songs like “No Day But Today,” “Seasons of Love” and “Will I?” draw tears no less torrential and inspire thoughts no less hopeful than when the crises that inspired them were fresh. The message — to live one’s life as fully and completely as possible and to bravely spit in the face of the status quo — will never lose its impact.
After the show’s composer, Jonathan Larson, died from an aneurysm the day before the show’s off-Broadway opening, rumblings of support from the media and elsewhere grew into a persistent buzz and finally a full-fledged symphony. Three months later, it began its historic Broadway run at the Nederlander Theatre. And now, after ending its run on the Great White Way, “Rent” will live on for decades to come in national tours, high school and college performances and unknown adaptations yet to be conceived.
The current tour, along with Rapp and Pascal, also features a handful of members of the final Broadway cast, along with original cast member and “Seasons of Love” soloist Gwen Stewart.
‘Rent’ heads /Local fanatics’ favorites
Name: Kevin Kennedy
Age: 25 (13,400,000 minutes)
“Rent” performances attended: 10, not including movies
Favorite character: Mark
Kennedy, a local actor who recently returned to town after a stint as tour manager for the Radio City Rockettes, first saw “Rent” with a group of high school friends in 1999. Since then, his love affair with the show has become an obsession.
“I know people who don’t see theater, but they’ll see ‘Rent’ and they’ll love it. It’ll draw that nontheater crowd,” Kennedy said. “I definitely think it’s the music and it’s also the story, which is not your average story. You have different relationships that people can identify with, whether you’re a heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple.”
Name: Josh Wright
Age: 21 (11,037,600 minutes)
“Rent” performances attended: 2
Favorite character: Mark
Wright started listening to the “Rent” cast recording in fifth grade but had to wait several years before he had the chance to see a stage production. He finally took in the show at Shea’s in 2006 and was impressed enough to high-tail it to New York City to see the show on Broadway.
“The last time it was in Buffalo, I saw it and I went that summer and saw it in New York City back when Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal were back on Broadway,” Wright said. “I was actually able to go backstage and meet them and get the whole tour of the theater. It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.”
About the show’s message, Wright said: “It’s just so touching with all of the love, the connections between the characters. … It’s telling you [that] you should live in the moment, not in the past or the future.”
Rapp session / Talking with a cast original
When “Rent” fans around the world cycle to the show’s cast recording on their iPods and press play — an experience that can border on the religious — the first thing they hear is the voice of Anthony Rapp. He originated the character of Mark, the show’s introspective observer and most even-keeled personality. Rapp’s life has been bound up with “Rent” since its first workshops in 1994, a fact the actor, singer and author embraces.
When did it become clear to you that “Rent” was becoming a cultural force?
In terms of my own personal relationship to the piece, knowing that it was something extraordinary was the first day of rehearsal. Learning “Seasons of Love.” That alone told me that this was something really, really special. And then it just got better and better from there. In the early stages, it was still a bit of a mess in some ways, and it needed work and all that, but it still had a tremendous power and integrity and heart and soul to it. And beautiful music. And it also reflected life in a way that most musical theater doesn’t.
It seems like an entire period of your life must have been defined in some ways by the “Rent” phenomenon. You wrote a book [“Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent”] about part of that. Has that been a heavy weight on you, something you’ve tried to get out from underneath, or something you’ve welcomed in your life?
I will never try to get out from underneath it, because it’s like, would you want to get out from underneath the best thing that ever happened to you? … Yes, there have been and probably will continue to be certain situations where it will mean I might not get an opportunity that I otherwise would get. But I’ve gotten so many opportunities because of it and so many transformational experiences. The people in my life because of it and the places I’ve gotten to travel as well. It made me not have to work at Starbucks anymore. All of the above.
What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned from your time with the show?
It might seem like a simple, almost a cliche now since it’s a famous phrase, but: “No day but today.” If you really take that to heart and really start to explore what that truly means? For me, Jonathan [Larson], as far as we knew, was a healthy, 35-year-old at the top of his game, about to have the most incredible opportunity of his life, and he died suddenly and unexpectedly, out of nowhere. And he did his best to live his life as fully as possible, to subscribe to the idea of living no day but today. He’s proof positive that when you do that you can actually make something important and meaningful happen in the world. Which is what “Rent” is.
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