We all have certain things--movies, books, plays, whatever--that we loved so much when we were young that, even when we outgrow them, they remain inextricably linked to a time and place in our lives. Which is why I felt a twinge of sadness when I heard that "Rent" will be closing on Broadway after 12 years. You could make the argument that the musical, for all intents and purposes, ended a while back when Joey Fatone assumed a lead role. But the play will always hold a special place in my heart.
It's hard for me to express now, or even to fully recall, how deeply this show affected me when I first saw it at the tender age of 16. It an awakening to a world that was passionate and exciting and so different from everything that I had ever known or experienced. They were bohemian artists! Who were gay! And had AIDS! (Well, that last part never struck me as particularly glamorous.) Nonetheless, I longed to throw off the shackles of my benign suburban existence and join them in that gritty urban wonderland known as the Lower East Side.
Because I didn't have the cash to pay bourgeois theater ticket prices, I only saw the show twice when it came through Chicago. But I played the soundtrack on a loop for a year. Or for 525,600 minutes. One way to measure a year is by the number of times you listened to the "Rent" soundtrack when you were 16. My friends were similarly obsessed, and we sang the music everywhere: in the car, at the lunch table, during press nights for the school newspaper. Even when I went to college, I first bonded with one of my best friends over how much we both loved the show. (She was one of the original "Rent-heads" in New York and to this day will not reveal to me how many times she's seen it.)
But time has a funny way of tarnishing the idols of our youth. When the movie version was released a couple of years ago I went to see it, partly out of nostalgia and partly hoping to rediscover what I had loved so much about it. Instead, I found myself slightly irritated by the whole production. While the characters on-screen were singing about artistic integrity and living La Vie Boheme, all I could think was, "Why won't you pay your rent? I pay rent. Everyone I know pays rent. Get over yourselves already and pay your damn rent!"
On a side note, it probably wasn't the brightest idea to have most of the original cast reprise their roles in the film version, considering they are now well in their 30s. There comes a point when squatting in an abandoned warehouse ceases to be an act of youthful rebellion and just becomes vagrancy. Also, as Matt pointed out when we left the theater, Mark's movie kind of sucks. It appears to be just random shots of his friends mugging for the camera. No wonder he and Roger couldn't even afford a space heater.
Even though its cultural moment has ended, I suppose that the show will still live on in some form. Something in its message about breaking convention and the desire to create a niche for yourself in the world will always resonate. However, I don't really know what the current generation of youngsters will make of "Rent" in a world where AIDS, while certainly still a very serious disease, doesn't have the same life-shattering implications that it did in the mid-90s. Where being openly gay no longer has the same power to shock the wider culture (even my grandmother liked that "Will and Grace" show), and if you want to be an avant-garde filmmaker all you have to do is upload videos on YouTube from the comfort of your parents' home.
Ultimately, I suspect that the phenomenal success of the show was emblematic of a specific time and place, just as I will always associate it with a specific time and place in my life. But if there's one thing that "Rent" has taught me over the years, it's that we all need to grow up sometime.
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7 comments:
That's a great observation! I felt the same way about the movie. I was annoyed that all these people who are older than me were making me feel bad for being a responsible adult.
As a theatre major who wasn't a Rent-head, I did get slightly annoyed in college when the soundtrack was played at EVERY party. I actually banned it by the time I was a senior and hosting my own parties.
I think you might be right-- the reason that "rent" doesn't feel so exhilirating anymore is because all of the things that made it new and exciting are kind of old hat now...which makes me wonder...what is the new "rent?" That show was really a movement starting in NYC, have we seen anything like it since?
Far as I can tell, the youth of today are having the same reactions to "High School Musical" as we did to "rent." Doesn't bode well.
It's funny when things to speak to you at a very specific time in your life. I'm with you on "Rent." I saw it twice in Boston and as a 16-year old still living with my parents in the 'burbs, nothing seemed more glamourous than living in the big city with my gay, HIV-positive, artist friends. You watch it now, though, and you realize they're all kind of losers and that Mark (who I related to because he was the "film guy") needs to stop moving the camera around so much (next year Mom & Dad, instead of the hotplate, how about a steadicam?)
I'm with you on this one too.
When I read the NY Times article the other day, I immediately emailed it to one of my best high school girlfriends - the girl who obsessed over musicals as much as I did and the one who went on to school at Wellesley while I headed off to BU. I can't tell you how many trips we took together in her car, back & forth to NJ for breaks, listening to that soundtrack. I even had a poster of it hanging in several dorm rooms throughout my years of school.
But, a few years ago, ironically enough, when I was moving TO New York, I threw out the now tattered RENT poster. And while I still know all the words by heart the minute it starts, it's been some time since I listened to the soundtrack. In fact, I have yet to even up load it to my ipod.
Still, I too saw it at a young impressionable age (17 for me, in Philadelphia) and remember having the same feelings. I couldn't wait to BE them. They were so cool! Burning things for heat! Eating Captain Crunch whenever they wanted! Sticking it to the man!
And then, for the year I was a New Yorker myself, that same high school friend I mention above and I went to see it on Broadway for $20. It was enjoyable of course, but I couldn't help think, "Um. Life doesn't really work that way in NY...and (like you said) - just pay the rent already."
(I also couldn't help but get very annoyed by the youth sitting behind me who gushed over every part of the show. I was all, haven't you SEEN THIS BEFORE? But that's a different comment for a different time.)
I have the movie in my queue but think it might be better to keep RENT as the memory it is. I believe Bob Dylan says it best - You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, the times, they are a changin'.
After this long post I can still promise you though, if I'm ever in your car and the soundtrack comes on? I will always sing my heart out with Mimi when she has to "go ouuuuttttt toooooonight!"
I've always looked at "Rent" the same way I look at Staind (yes, the band).
Whenever I hear a song from "Rent" or a song by Staind I instantly recognize that teenage me would have loved it. But then I also realize that the people producing said music ARE OLDER THAN ME.
Jonathan Larson was 36 when Rent came out. Thirty-six!! He was older than you are now when he wrote that! Grow up, man!
Granted, teenagers doing the writing is just as bad.
*cough* Reality Bites *cough*
*It should be noted that Jonathan Larson cannot, in fact, grow up, as he is deceased. I'm sure he was a wonderful man who wrote a crappy music that won lots of awards.*
Funny how a play about being destitute and diseased reminds us of being footloose and fancy free. Those were good times.
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