'Rent' Twenty Years On

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Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini knew his public. Even when critics complained that his music was prosaic and his characters superficial, he kept to his successful style. One such snarled-at work was La bohème, which had its premiere under the baton of the young Arturo Toscanini in 1896. The public immediately fell in love with its setting—the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s—and its young bohemian characters. Central to the cast were the lovers Rodolfo, a poet, and Mimi, a seamstress. Their love story, both relatable and realistic, helped make the work timeless.

Even so, timeless or dated, it’s no small feat getting young people to go to the opera—accessible music, identifiable characters and relevant plot notwithstanding. Enter American composer and playwright Jonathan Larson who, in 1990, scored a success with his one-man show tick, tick… BOOM! His subsequent encounter with fellow playwright Billy Aronson would prove most fortunate, indeed. Aronson, in 1988, began conceptualizing “a musical based on Puccini’s La bohème in which [his] world would be replaced with the coarseness and noise of modern New York,” according to Aronson’s website. So enthused was Larson about the idea that he took Aronson’s concept and, with the latter’s approval, made it his own. The result was Rent. 

Larson wrote the book, lyrics and score for Rent throughout the early-’90s while waiting tables at a New York diner. Through trial and error and much pruning (his original score contained 42 songs!) the final version of Rent took gradual shape into what Larson wanted: a rock opera “to bring musical theater to the MTV generation” (as he put it in a New York Times article). The result? Rent was a major success, to say the least. It won the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama (among many other accolades). Its initial Broadway run lasted 12 years—more than 5,000 performances—and grossed more than $280 million. Rent has also now been seen all around the world and, on any given week, is in production somewhere.

Such is now the case with the “Rent 20th Anniversary Tour,” which makes a welcome stop at Milwaukee’s Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. This “20th anniversary” tag is more than just a selling gimmick; key members of its original creative team have reunited for this national tour.

“It has enormously valid things to say about the ways in which we all seek out community and form families and how we take care of one another in very difficult times,” says Michael Greif, director of both Rent’s original Off-Broadway and Broadway productions. “The message of the musical is to truly appreciate the time that we have, and to truly appreciate each other—because you don’t know when someone will be gone from your life.” The production features direction by Evan Ensign, who has based his work on Greif’s original ideas. 

In Puccini’s story, young Mimi is afflicted with the malady of the time, tuberculosis, or “consumption” as it was then called. In Rent, the disease that haunts the characters is HIV/AIDS. Set among the young bohemians of a major urban area—gay, straight, bisexual, male, female and transgender—Rent’s story is one of great relevance for our times as much as it was for 1996—or 1896, for that matter.

“I was taken to see the show for my 17th birthday, and it was seminal for me,” recalls the creator of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda. “I’d never seen a musical that took place in the present day and in The Village. I knew I was going to be in the arts, and it meant so much to see these kids struggling with how to survive and make a living and not sell out their principles. It hit me like a ton of bricks.”

Its characters are “common,” and many Americans would look down on such people. After all, none is a successful Wall Street stockbroker; none is a high-powered New York lawyer; none is a high-ranking member of the NYPD or NYFD; none shops on Fifth Avenue. Yet these young people are heroes and, yes, role models. They live their lives clinging to their dreams, be they artistic, occupational or romantic. They face more hurdles than many of their fellow Americans can imagine. They—like the show’s creator, himself—really work hard just to stay alive and to have a not-too-leaky roof over their heads, all the while dreaming big dreams. And some, like Larson, die much too young. 

On Jan. 25, 1996—the very day that Rent premiered Off-Broadway, just beginning its meteoric rise—Larson died alone in his bed of an undiagnosed heart problem. He was just days shy of 36 years old.

“In the past five years,” Michael Greif adds, “so many young composers and theater talents have told me that Rent enabled them to begin to see themselves as part of the American theater. It’s been very gratifying and moving to me and everyone associated with Rent to know the impact that the show has had on this next generation.”

Hopefully, Rent will continue to do so for generations to follow. Such would have rightly made Jonathan Larson—and Giacomo Puccini—very happy, indeed. 

“Rent 20th Anniversary Tour” runs Oct. 3-8 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.