Rent

For the first time since May 2018, the fam and I headed out from the Fortress of Ineptitude to take in a live theater production.

It was also our first time ever venturing into the new entertainment venue in downtown Greensboro known as the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. 

What we went to see was the national touring production of Rent, the acclaimed rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera La Bohème. 

It's about a group of young artists, poor, hungry and struggling to survive in Lower Manhattan's East Village in the 1980's.  Their story is told through high powered rock anthems and power ballads with energetic choreography and colorful costumes. 

But over these proceedings told through power chords and dynamic dance is an ever present darkness of imminent suffering and death. It is a cast of characters burdened and cursed by the looming shadow of HIV/AIDS.  

Two roommates—Mark, a filmmaker, and Roger, a rock musician—struggle to stay warm in an old decrepit building with a host of homeless. Mark, Roger and all the rest are dealing with loss, lost loves, lost lives and lost opportunities.

And now the loss of this old building they've come to call home.  Benny, a former friend of Mark and Roger, owns the building and has his own plan which don't involve these homeless bohemians living there.

Mark's former lover Maureen stages a protest performance on Christmas Eve but Benny padlocks the building, locking out the tenants. 

Act II takes place over the year that follows as broken relationships and death fractures the group. 

Now that is a very distilled account of the events that occur in Rent and cannot begin to describe the remarkably complex tableau of a dozen different characters trying to make things work in a world designed to not work for them. 

I can only touch base on some key moments on the play.

When Angel explodes onto the stage in full glorious drag, it is a bright and cathartic moment as she delivers an anthem of life and hope and joy ("Today 4 U"). Angel will not meet a happy end, succumbing to AIDS in the 2nd act. But all who knew and loved Angel agree that when Angel was alive, she was the most alive of all of them.

Roger is living with HIV and the survivor's guilt after his girlfriend April killed herself when she received her HIV diagnosis. Roger is desperate to write one really great song before he dies ("One Song Glory").  His depressed state makes him less than responsive when love does find him again in the form of his neighbor, Mimi, an exotic dancer and junkie ("Light My Candle"). Mimi does not look likely to survive Act II but there is a miracle moment when there is a reprieve. The clock is still ticking and time is short but time is not yet over.

Maureen is absent for most of the first act but looms large over the proceedings. Then near the end of Act I with a burst of light and the rev of a motorcycle engine, Maureen makes her overly dramatic entrance with an over the top and dreadfully earnest protest song  ("Over the Moon") that involves wacky and hilariously tacky imagery of cows jumping over the moon. Maureen pokes her head through the 4th wall to entreat the Tanger Center audience in joining her in mooing.  

And that is just scratching the surface of all the wonderful things, both heartbreaking and uplifting, that occur in this show. 

Knowing something of the story and subject of Rent, I was a bit concern that the show might be oppressively sad with an unrelenting dark tone. But there are moments for laugh out loud hilarity and an undercurrent of hope.

Though they walk in the valley of the shadow of death, Rent is not about death but about life. Life is hard and it hurts body and soul but life is also love and the glories that come from that.

Rent ends with the surviving characters under a death sentence. Other than Mark, very few of these people will live past thirty.  In the finale, in a moment of shared happiness, they resolve to enjoy whatever time they have left with each other. 

There is "no day but today".

______________________________

Some other thoughts:

There is no orchestra in a pit in front of the stage. Instead the music is presented by a house band over to the side of the stage, a keyboardist, guitarist and drummer who must be the hardest working musicians in show business. Riffing on hard rock, pop ballads and other musical styles, this band keeps going non-stop.

I was winded just climbing one flight of stairs to our seats. Meanwhile, I was amazed at performers dancing and performing acrobatics while singing. 

Unfortunately blurry pic of the Rent stage

And speaking of our seats, we were lucky in that we were dead center with the stage but we were a long way back. Despite big epic Broadway-esque production numbers, Rent is still a very intimate show that I think would be better served with closer seats.  Still, kudos to Andrea for scoring our tickets thanks to a handy dandy discount through her employer.

And thanks to our daughter Randie who made it home from college in time for us to make it to the show on time.

All in all, Rent made for a fine return to see live musical theater and I hope we get a chance to do it again real soon. 

Lobby of the Tanger Center