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08/18/2016 12:01 AMWhen the full company of Rent assembles on stage at the Ivoryton Playhouse at the beginning of Act II and breaks out into “Seasons of Love,” it’s pitch perfect and heart-rending, an exquisite delivery of the musical’s signature song. Soloists Sheniqua Denise Trotman and Jamal Shuriah drive it home.
That said, as much work and energy that clearly went into this production, the rest of the show just doesn’t live up to this one big number that became a pop hit on its own in the ’90s.
A major reason is a technical one—the sound system. It doesn’t carry such a large cast performing a mostly-sung musical—25 songs in Act I and 16 in Act II—with little dialogue. As a result, it’s hard to make out the words in order to follow the storyline and it kind of blurs all together.
It’s also hard to connect with the main characters, partly because of the sound issues and partly because of a complex and challenging script that has so many vignettes and performances that demand to be clearly delineated and defined.
When Rent (book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson) hit Broadway in 1996, it was an unorthodox and controversial musical, addressing the HIV/AIDS crises in the urban gay community head on. It was very well received by theater critics and audiences alike, going on to garner a Tony Award for Best Musical, and it didn’t close until 2008 after a 12-year run, one of the longest in Broadway history.
Inspired by Puccini’s famous opera La Boheme, Rent replaces the plague of tuberculosis in 1800s Paris with the AIDS epidemic of a century later in New York, and even bases its main characters on those in Puccini’s passion play.
The musical takes place during one year in the life of a group of struggling young artists living in the East Village who are faced with death and dying at too young an age, grappling with their sexuality, and ultimately discovering the meaning of love.
Mark Cohen (Tim Russell) narrates the musical. He’s a Jewish documentary filmmaker, recently dumped by Maureen Johnson (Stephanie Genito), a performance artist. Maureen is now in love with Joanne Jefferson (Maritza Bostic), a public interest lawyer, who identifies as a lesbian.
Roger Davis (Johnny Newcomb) is Mark’s roommate, an ex-lead singer, rock guitarist, ex-junkie. He is HIV positive, and trying to write one last “noteworthy” song before he dies.
Mimi Marques (Alyssa V. Gomez) is a Hispanic-American nightclub dancer and drug addict, who lives in the downstairs apartment from Mark and Roger. She also has HIV, and is Roger’s girlfriend.
Other significant roles include Tom Collins (Patrick Clanton) as an anarchist professor with AIDS; Angel Dumott Schunard (Jonny Cortes), a transgender woman drag queen with AIDS; and Benjamin Coffin III (Collin L. Howard), Mark, Roger, and Mimi’s landlord, who married into a wealthy real estate family and is tagged as “yuppie scum” and a sell-out by his numerous former roommates.
As I said earlier, this is no simple plot.
But despite the obstacles of Tate Burmeister’s sound design, tight staging, not particularly illuminating lighting by Marcus Abbott, and the multi-layered script, the show definitely picks up and becomes easier to follow in the second act. And the actors give it their best shot, particularly Clanton and Cortez as Tom and Angel, who bring heartfelt passion touched with humor to their roles and relationship.
Steve Skinner and Tim Weil have done a nice job with musical arrangements. Among the many memorable and well-performed songs in this production, besides “Seasons of Love,” are “One Song Glory,” a solo by Newcomb; “Light My Candle” and “Without You,” both sung by Newcomb and Gomez; and “I’ll Cover You,” a duet by Cortez and Clanton.
The show features a dynamic five-piece rock band versus a pit orchestra and it’s too bad that due to space constraints the band was hidden below stage (instead of on stage) where we couldn’t watch them perform or hear them that clearly.
The Ivoryton Playhouse has produced a number of large-scale musicals over the past several years that have been very successful in their execution. Perhaps Rent is just a bit too ambitious for such a small theater. But it’s a significant, intelligent musical that is worth a trip to Ivoryton if you never got to see it on Broadway.
And Jacqueline Hubbard, the theater’s executive/artistic director, who directs the show, should be applauded for taking a chance with an edgier, darker, more- socially-relevant-than-usual production that will appeal to a younger audience and shake up the older crowd.
Rent is at the Ivoryton Playhouse through Aug. 28. Two additional Saturday matinee performances have been added at 2 p.m. on Aug. 20 and 27. Tickets are available by calling the Playhouse box office at 860-767-7318 or online at www.ivorytonplayhouse.org.