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Years from now, “Rent” will be considered a turn-of-the-century musical remembered as much for the story behind it as for the story it tells.
A lot of ink has been devoted to the late Jonathan Larson, the composer and writer for “Rent,” whose life has taken on heroic proportions in the eyes of other struggling artists. Working as a waiter in Greenwich Village, he waited tables to earn a living while he wrote “Rent,” a reworking of Verdi’s opera “La Boheme” with a contemporary East Village setting. Many of the characters and scenes from the show come from his life among the “new Bohemians” of his time.
After seven years of toil, Larson garnered support from producers and an off-off Broadway production was mounted at the beginning of this year. But after watching the final dress rehearsal in January, Larson returned to his apartment and died of an aortic aneurysm. He was 35 and on the brink of stardom.
That story underscores every moment of “Rent,” and its performers — whether at the original production still playing at the Nederlander Theatre in New York or in the recently opened production at the Shubert Theatre in Boston — have become infused with a memorial spirit that surely propels them to give it their all.
And “Rent” requires nothing less than all of you — whether you’re the performer or the viewer. It combines the camp of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with the driving beats of “Tommy” and the candor of “A Chorus Line.” Yet it is truly a 1990s piece with characters straining not only to pay rent, but also striving to be artists, or to find the next fix of dope, or to go to their AIDS support groups. At one point in the show, beepers go off and the people carrying them realize it’s time for their doses of AZT. “Bohemia is a fallacy in your head. This is Calcutta,” goes one of the songs.
“Rent” won a Pulitzer Prize and four Tony Awards this year. It’s a shocking, rocking, shameless work that is nevertheless filled with a disarmingly raw tenderness and love. So what if it’s the guy gets the girl — and he also gets the guy, and she gets the girl, too. This is unabashed urban America, and Larson’s work is honest if nothing else.
If you’re heading to Boston for a few days to do your holiday shopping, it’s worth taking in the show. Several of the performances are top-notch. C.C. Brown has a voice that’s worth traveling 250 miles to hear. Simone, daughter of blues singer Nina Simone, is a steamy chanteuse, and Carrie Hamilton, daughter of Carol Burnett, is a scream as a militant bisexual performance-artist. Others in the cast help create a punk-rock mood as they crawl, kick and shiver around a set of bold lighting and gray scaffolding, but there are no real stand-out actors or singers.
“Rent” is a hip show — and that’s one of the reasons this production seems a little sappy. It’s so self-consciously hip and proud of its politics that the rawness it wants to reveal seems to have already slipped from poignancy into parody. So few great works of art can weather the storm of fame without slipping into a whirlwind of commercial trendiness. In this regard, it’s likely that the New York production has an edge that the Boston one lacks.
If you plan to go as a family, be aware that this musical deals with some tough issues and can be hard-hitting in its presentation of them. Above all, however, it is a love story and a tear-jerking one at that.
“Rent” will be performed 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Jan. 26, 1997, at the Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont St. in Boston. There are no performances Dec. 24 and 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets cost $25-$67.50, and may be purchased by calling 1-800-447-7400.
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