Early thoughts on RENT...

Midway through the fall quarter of my junior year at Northwestern, our Musical Theater Techniques instructor told us about a new musical theater work that was being developed in New York, possibly headed for Broadway. The show was based on the story of the opera La Bohème and it was the brainchild of a young composer/lyricist who had a distinct idea about bringing relevance to musical theater for a younger, artistically-driven generation by blending it with the world of rock. The characters, setting, language and plot themes (including AIDS) were not the stuff of traditional musical theater. But musical theater had been originally conceived as a widespread, “popular” art form, so discussion about this new work made sense in the context of our fall course, as we wound our way chronologically through the catalogues of George M. Cohan, the Gershwins, and Rodgers & Hammerstein, all popular artists in their day, but now the stuff of “important” American music and theater history.

In late January, a couple weeks into the second quarter of the course, our instructor brought us the sobering news: Jonathan Larson, the young composer/creator of RENT had died suddenly and completely unexpectedly…not of AIDS, but of an aneurysm. I remember that the news created a frustrated sigh and grunt of disbelief around the room. Jonathan Larson had already been introducing himself as “the future of musical theater” to the likes of Stephen Sondheim and others, and even though we’d not yet heard a note of RENT, our instructor’s enthusiasm for the project had already made us feel like it was going to be true…and now he was gone.

That June, RENT won the Tony Award for Best Musical and before we convened for our senior year that fall, my classmates and I had all committed the two-disc soundtrack to memory and assumed “Seasons of Love” as a collective anthem for our last year together. The characters of Jonathan Larson’s story were a community of unfinished artists, as we were, and the year the story captured was filled with pain and heartbreak, but also intense passion and self-discovery. Those were very real emotions that year for all of us, deepening our connection to RENT.

I remember feeling at the time that Jonathan Larson, at age 35, certainly must have been *too old* to be telling his own present story at the time RENT was produced, but I have since realized that the characters of RENT are not defined by their age, but by the choices and realities of their lifestyle. The characters are all unmarried with no children and they choose to spend holidays with each other instead of with extended or even immediate family. Most are artists of one kind or another and at least some of them have trouble financially because of that choice. And without a doubt, these artists are committed to a fault to remaining true to themselves. Now that I am only one year away from Larson’s age at the time of his death, I recognize that a person can always carry those personal and artistic ideals, no matter what their age.

Some define RENT as an already-dated “AIDS play” because while AIDS certainly remains an important concern today, it is not nearly as much of a death sentence to the artistic community as it was in the early 1990s of RENT. Jonathan Larson didn’t die of AIDS and yet on a very real level, the loss of his life is the most tragic associated with this show. If it’s not AIDS, it’s consumption (as was the case with the character of Mimi in La Bohème) or it’s something else; we are always losing artists before they have realized their full potential. I would argue that while RENT’s legacy will always include the impact of AIDS, it is the mantra of “No Day But Today” that stays with all of us and will stay with future audiences long after the show’s final notes. While the show doesn’t end with Mimi’s death, we know that she *will* die because in the AIDS of the 1990s, death was inevitable. Still, for Roger to finally fully embrace that he can and should live each moment with Mimi as if it could be the last (just as Collins and Angel lived every moment) is enough closure for us.

I feel humbled to have been given the opportunity to direct RENT for the Springfield Theatre Centre in the upcoming season. Information and thoughts about the production will be posted at http://rentatstc.blogspot.com/. Please check the blog for audition details and other information as it becomes available.