OFF-BROADWAY REVIEW
Familiarity might have something to do with it. We’ve grown used to Rent since
it opened at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996 amidst the shock and
tragedy of its 35-year-old author’s death of an undiagnosed aortic
aneurism. Larson’s premature demise was followed by a Pulitzer Prize,
four Tony Awards, a successful Broadway run, a major motion picture,
multiple national and international tours, and more recently, a
profusion of regional and college productions. We’ve grown accustomed to
its theatrical audacity and take for granted its daring. For better or
for worse, Rent has never left our cultural consciousness. For Rent to send seismic
ripples through the landscape of American theater once more, it would
demand major rethought and reinterpretation by its director. Michael
Greif has not done that. In what must be every director’s dream
exercise, Greif returns to the show he has helmed since its earliest
workshop in 1994 and polishes it for the twenty-first century with new
staging, new projection design, new sets, and new costumes. As welcome
as Rent’s new look is (leopard boots and striped scarves are
nowhere to be seen), Greif offers no fresh dramaturgical perspective on a
work well into its second decade. His cautious approach avoids the
mistakes of London’s disastrous “Rent Remixed,” but it breaks no new
ground. Everyone who loves Rent remembers the thrill of
discovering it for the first time, and what I missed most in this second
introduction was the old sense that I was watching something momentous,
something which had never been done before. Producers Jeffrey Seller,
Kevin McCollum, and Allan Gordon have not given us another phenomenon
but rather a tribute to a phenomenon. With the exceptions of Annaleigh Ashford (Wicked) and Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal)
Greif has assembled a company of unknown performers who approach
Larson’s material with refreshing irreverence. Rather than attempting to
recreate the performances of an iconic original cast, this new
generation offers different and occasionally surprising takes on beloved
characters. Ashford’s unfailingly perky and earnest Maureen delivers a
novel “Over the Moon,” and the vocal acrobatics she and Joanne (Corbin
Reid) unleash on “Take Me Or Leave Me” reach stratospheric heights.
Chanler-Berat, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Larson, is quietly
self-contained as Mark as he gives an unadorned performance perhaps
closer to the essence of the character’s self-protective detachment than
the histrionic neuroticism employed by many of his predecessors. Those already familiar with Rent will
observe that Angel (MJ Rodriguez) has undergone the greatest
transformation. The warm-hearted street drummer has shed his layers of
protective drag to emerge as a boyish club kid whose relationship with
Collins (Nicholas Christopher) is complex, masculine, and a good deal
richer than the safe femininity we grew accustomed to on Broadway. Although Larson’s portrayal of
Angel’s AIDS-induced decline (and the torments and fears of the other
HIV-positive characters) lacks the searing violence manifest in recent
revivals of Angels in America and The Normal Heart, Rent has
always been more of a celebration of hope and tenacity than a social
indictment or a call to arms. Its politics may be tamer, but if nothing
else this revival is a testament to the staying power of Larson’s songs,
a ceaseless outpouring of craft, melody and heartfelt sentiment that
goes a long way towards justifying the show’s premature return to New
York. But as I watched the hip young
ensemble fling themselves about Mark Wendland’s striking metal jungle
gym of a set, their vocals surrounded and occasionally drowned by Tim
Weil’s slick orchestrations (an amplification of his original 1996
work), a strange thought struck me. This flashier production, with its
eye-grabbing projections and head-banging choreography bore infinitely
more resemblance to recent rock musicals like American Idiot and Next to Normal than it did to, well, Rent. How ironic indeed that today Rent finds
itself indebted to the modern hits that never would have existed if
Jonathan Larson’s unfinished masterpiece hadn’t taken the theater world
by storm fifteen years ago. Review courtesy of BroadwaySpace.com.
OFF-BROADWAY REVIEW OF RENT
Reviewed by Kari Olmon
Published 2011-08-12
“How did we get here?” wonders
Mark Cohen, the conflicted filmmaker at the heart of Jonathan Larson’s
landmark rock opera. It’s a good question, and one many of us have been
asking ourselves since Rent began previews at New World Stages in
July. Broadway’s seventh longest-running show has been reduced, reused,
and recycled for an Off-Broadway run just three years after it played
its final performance at the Nederlander Theatre, and any leftover grit
clinging to Larson’s bohemian Village dwellers has been washed squeaky
clean.
While
it surprises me that they would select New World Stages – a venue with
all the edginess of a Midwestern shopping mall – to rehabilitate the
image of a show that had long since faded into synthetic commerciality
on Broadway, the fresh-faced cast of fourteen fills the 500-seat theater
with enough conviction to remind you that – once upon a time – “Seasons
of Love” was a heartbreaking elegy for young lives lost (Larson’s among
them) before it was popularized as a choir and karaoke standard for a
new generation.
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