Review: RENT at Bass Concert Hall [Musical]

RENT
Tuesday, May 12 - Sunday, May 17
Bass Concert Hall (510 E. 23rd Street)
$18.50 - $65.50, May 13 - 15 8pm, May 16 2pm & 8pm, May 17 2pm and 7:30pm
[info] | [tickets]

Waiter, waiter, there’s HAIR in my musical! It certainly seems that way with RENT, the smash hit Broadway musical currently playing at the Bass Concert Hall. And the plot/musical numbers aren’t just reminiscent, at times, of that other musical (HAIR) — the audience will get whiffs of other shows, too. But above all, the plot derives (purposefully) from Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème, right down to the same-named female protagonists— Mimi— who, in the original opera and the Broadway show, are both overly flirtatious and terminally ill. But one needn’t be familiar with the opera to enjoy its updated version. RENT is packed with some outstanding moments and more than a few excellent songs.

Basically, what we have is a group of young, fucked up, starving artist types squatting in NYC’s East Village, trying to figure out life and love and, like, you know, The Meaning of It All. Is this a tired premise? Certainly not for fans of literary archetypes—the old man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature (or the concrete jungle in this instance). Mark (Anthony Rapp) is our narrator, a documentary filmmaker hounded by his answering machine, which fills up with nagging messages from, among others, his Jewish mother and a TV producer wanting him to make a soul-selling deal-with-the-devil. His roommate, Roger (Adam Pascal), is HIV positive, rendered more or less agoraphobic until Mimi (Lexi Lawson) the junkie-stripper with AIDS hurls herself at him and mad love ensues.

There are any number of subplots with enough weight to actually be counted more as parallel plots. Mark’s girlfriend, Maureen (Nicolette Hart), has left him for Joanne (Gwen Stewart), a triangle with enough residual stickiness to inspire the song Tango: Maureen, a lovely dance of revelation during with both the spurned love and the new love each realize that their mutually beloved has actually, for better and for worse, treated them much the same way. Then there is the love story of Angel (Andy Senor) the drag queen and Tom Collins (Michael MacElroy) the anarchist professor. And don’t forget the recurrent chorus of homeless folk who live in the lot next door, fighting eviction by good-guy-turned-bad-guy property owner Benny (Jacques C. Smith), who, by the way, has a little dead dog and a thing for Mimi.

Does it sound confusing? It’s not really—pretty easy to follow along, though at times it might feel like RENT is best seen by those with the pre-existing condition of already knowing and loving RENT. That said, even the unafflicted could catch the fever easily enough, particularly with the show stopping moments offered up by Maureen, the delightfully narcissistic performance artist (her protest monologue is reason enough to see the show) and Angel because, girl, you just cannot EVER get enough of a good drag queen, hear?!

There’s fun in the details, too—the original show was written pre-cell phone and voice mail, so it’s something bordering on quaint to watch the characters use those old bugbears of communication—pay phone, land line, and answering machine. And, too, this is one of those shows where a lot of the dialogue is delivered all sing-songy, which is sort of silly but oddly enjoyable at times. In summary, to quote an ethusiastic audience member, “This is like Sesame Street with AIDS!”

Indeed, it is probably the most cheerful, upbeat tribute to starving artistry and premature death ever penned. And for those who know the backstory of Rent’s creator Jonathan Larson’s untimely death—after dedicating countless years to the project, he died suddenly, far too young, the day before the premiere—there is a haunting element of art-imitates-life-imitates-art that cannot be ignored.

Rent runs through May 17 at Bass Concert Hall.

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