Last night, Katie and I watched the DVD of RENT: Filmed Live on Broadway. I’ve seen Rent twice on Broadway, watched the film version that came out in 2005 a couple times, and listened to the soundtrack too many times to count. Since I began listening to music as a human being, it’s probably been the album that I’ve listened to the most times. In all, the show has had a large influence on my life.
I still love the show, and I expect that most musical-theatre-lovers of my generation do too. It may not be their favorite musical, but it’s hard to believe that it doesn’t hold a special place in the heart of anyone who saw it when they were young and just beginning to appreciate musicals.
What makes it so great? First, it’s well written. The songs are catchy and infectious, the characters just flawed enough, and the plot is touching without becoming trite. Every time Angel dies (spoiler!), I still cry.
Second, the story of Jonathan Larson’s career and the journey of getting Rent to the stage is heart-breaking and inspiring. It’s the kind of thing that only seems to happen in made-for-TV-movies.
Most powerfully, for a kid in school, seeing or hearing this musical opened doors you didn’t know were possible. It let you look past the touring production of 42nd Street you saw last summer and the version of Kiss Me, Kate that your school was putting on this year. As the opening chords of Tune Up #1 start, it was like Larson whispered in my ear: “do you see what a musical can be?” It can be dark and full of electric guitars. It can be set in a abandoned loft in New York City. It can speak to what people are like today.
Taken together, Rent is so entertaining and so hopeful and so powerful that it has a permanent spot on my iPhone. I’m sad that I’ll never get the chance to see it on Broadway again, but I feel grateful that I was lucky enough to see it for the first time as a kid.
It also let me bond with a bunch of friends in college quickly and easily. For example, here are some somewhat embarrassing college pictures of me “performing” Light My Candle and La Vie Boheme next to the fence at CMU late one night freshman year!
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