Rent, 11 years later
I wanted to write a post about this right after I got back from Phoenix in March, but it was way too busy at the time and things haven’t settled down until now. I went to see the show, Rent, with my mom, brother, and sister on my last night in town before heading back to LA. The four of us caught the show back on it’s first tour through Phoenix in 1998. Seeing it again, older, wiser, and with it now ingrained as part of our youth was a great experience.
I know it’s kind of cheesy. I know some people think it’s awful. I know it looks and sounds extremely dated if you didn’t catch it when it initially caught on in popularity. But screw all that, I love it. We were fortunate enough to see all kinds of plays and musicals when I was in high school: Evita, West Side Story, Camelot, and others. Was it strange that I would listen to Phantom of the Opera on my walkman while doing yard-work, then switch to hip-hop while playing basketball, and eventually convert to 80’s electronic music? Probably. I consider it versatile (and it explains the completely random songs here and there on my iPod).
Honestly, I wasn’t fully sold on it the first time I saw it. At intermission my mom and I wondered if we shouldn’t leave. It was just so different than anything we expected (this was before the era of live twitter reviews and facebook updates), but we gave it a chance. The second act sold us. After we saw it, we had to buy the original broadway recording soundtrack. We wore out those 2 CD’s that summer. We’d practically perform the whole thing each day, and if we weren’t trying to sing along, we’d at least have it in the background.
When we were that young, the whole artist and bohemian ideals thing was attractive because it was so abstract and distant. Seeing it again now was a different story. That’s not to say I’m some type of live on the street, struggling to pay the rent artist. Far from it, for better or worse. But it is funny that I chose to pursue filmmaking, my brother dance, and my sister acting. The struggle between making money and selling out, finding your voice, and love and passion for art that plays out in Rent really hit home this time around. I could relate to it this time, rather than only imagine the romanticized version. We all could, I think, which is why we still love it so much.
The other aspect of the play I appreciated more this time around was the aspect of characters sick and dying, or, as one character puts it, “because I’m used to relying on intellect, but I try to open up to what I don’t know.” That moment, when they’re in the life support meeting, got to me. It was the idea of health defying logic, of being close to death and struggling with what that means. I don’t know why, but it touched me when I saw it.
We had decent seats and we were excited because the original Mark and Roger were back touring with the company. As soon as the music started, I got chills. Actually, I got chills at the start of most of the songs. It’s one thing to hear the soundtrack on CD hundreds of times, but it’s another to see it live and feel it. The other amazing thing was the crowd. We weren’t the only ones who wore down our CD growing up. It was like an encore performance, and I’m sure the entire tour plays out that way now. Everyone knows what is coming, so there was a self-conscious aspect to parts of the performance and some of the songs. I loved seeing the crowd going crazy. You could feel the emotion in the theater, and I’m sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the end of the performance.
It was great to see the musical again, from a different perspective this time. I still love it, and I’ll still play it from time to time. It’s nice to see how certain things can age along with you, and Rent is something that I think will always age well in my eyes.