‘Rent’ remains resonant but shows its years
The “Rent 20th Anniversary Tour” veritably reverberates with the groundbreaking rock musical’s bold, youthful energy, but the bombastic national production only occasionally manages to tap into the heart and soul of Jonathan Larson’s influential masterwork.
There’s something inherently awkward in the concept of a “Rent 20th Anniversary Tour,” in taking a trip down memory lane with a show that prominently features the lyrics “There is no past / I live each moment as my last” in the beloved song-turnedslogan “No Day But Today.”
For music theater devotees, seeing Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1996 rock opera on stage at least once could rightly be considered a requirement, if for no other reason than to experience his incredible songs performed live. Once you’re in the theater, though, it’s impossible to forget that the writercomposer penned “Rent” “to bring musical theater to theMTV generation”; considering that MTV stopped being relevant at least a decade ago, it’s hardly surprising that “Rent” feels dated.
The anniversary tour playing Civic Center Music Hall through Sunday is presenting a show that is as clumsy and capricious as its young characters: part 1980s period piece, part unabashed nostalgia trip, part still-relevant coming-of-age epic. It’s the kind of show in which a song about “living in America at the end of the millennium” (“What You Own”) still feels timely with its themes about staying engaged in an increasingly isolated and materialistic world, while a timeless profession of love that might come too late (“Your Eyes”) has its tear-jerking potency diminished by a guitar solo that pulls you right out of the moment and into a Whitesnake video flashback.
Inspired by the Giacomo Puccini opera“La Boheme,” “Rent” still follows a tight-knit group of impoverished young artists living in New York City’s East Village in the late 1980s from one Christmas to the next as they struggle through life, love and loss under the looming shadow of the AIDS epidemic.
Best friends Mark (Sammy Ferber), an aspiring filmmaker who narrates the proceedings, and Roger (Kaleb Wells), a grieving HIV-positive rocker who wants to write one last meaningful song, live in a shabby, unheated warehouse loft owned by their former roommate Benny (Marcus John), whose marriage to a wealthy woman has turned him into a budding entrepreneur determined to collect the rent he previously told his pals they wouldn’t have to pay. Their buddy Collins (Aaron Harrington), a gay, anarchist college instructor and computer genius, is embarking on a new romance with Angel (Aaron Alcaraz), a big-hearted drag queen and street drummer who, like Collins, has AIDS.
Mark is still carrying a torch for showy, self-centered performance artist Maureen (Lyndie Moe), who is staging a dramatic piece to protest Benny’s plans to evict the homeless camp in the empty lot next to the loft. But Maureen has left him for Joanne (Jasmine Easler), a crusading lesbian lawyer from a rich family. And Roger fears being burned by the newly lit candle he’s holding for the mercurial Mimi (Skyler Volpe), a vivacious drug addict who works as an exotic dancer.
The youthful cast, including some performers making their professional or national touring debuts, is loaded with gifted singers and dynamic dancers. They are well equipped to turn “La Vie Boheme,” “Tango: Maureen” and “Today 4 U” into the smashing showstoppers they’re meant to be and to make ballads like “I’ll Cover You,” “Goodbye, Love” and “One Song Glory” resonate with authentic emotion.
But the actors too often fall short of creating fully realized characters. Harrington and Alcaraz spark compelling chemistry as Collins and Angel, but the former doesn’t convincingly carry off his character’s anarchist bent; conversely, Wells believably embodies the anguished musician afraid of dying but doesn’t muster enough chemistry with Ferber to make Mark and Roger’s friendship the emotional center the twisty tale needs to hold it together. Ironically, the two standout actors at Tuesday’s Oklahoma City opening night show, Alcaraz and Easler, are playing the characters given the least to do.
Between the Tony-winning show’s cultural significance — Lin-Manuel Miranda has said there’d be no “Hamilton” if it wasn’t for “Rent”— and Larson’s tragic death just before his passion project’s first preview, it’s hardly a surprise that the 20th anniversary tour is doggedly faithful to the original. But like filmmakers who adhere to their favorite books so closely that the movies cover the plot points without capturing the story’s essence, the “Rent” revisitation doesn’t quite convey the freshness and urgency that made the show so great in the first place.
“Seasons of Love” remains possibly the best musical theater song ever written (coming from a Rodgers & Hammerstein fan from Oklahoma, that’s saying something), and Marlies Yearby’s Tonynominated choreography is visceral and vibrant. The “Rent 20th Anniversary Tour” is probably still must-see theater for ardent Rent-heads or people who fell hard for the soundtrack or film but have never seen it live. But expectations for the iconic show should be tempered: Remember, 20 years is a lot of years, and the years aren’t always kind.