At Zeitgeist Theater Company’s opening night for RENT, the sold-out house of “Rent Heads,” and a few seeing the show for the first time, were raucous and primed to rock, clap, scream, and cheer for writer/composer Jonathan Larson’s landmark musical.
Larson loosely based his story of impoverished young artists living in Lower Manhattan’s East Village on Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 “La Bohème.” RENT opened in 1996, one hundred years after Puccini’s opera.
Tragically, the 35-year-old Larson died of an aortic dissection before RENT’s preview night off-Broadway, never seeing the incredible success his masterpiece went on to attain, including four Tonys, including Best Musical, Drama Desk awards, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Running on Broadway for twelve years and for nearly thirty years since, RENT has continued to be popular with audiences all over the U.S. and across the world with tours, professional and amateur productions, and resident companies.
Set at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, its themes of homelessness, poverty, friendship, gentrification of poor neighborhoods, and discrimination against the Bohemian culture and what was then referred to as the LGB community living with and dying from AIDS, made it unique in the world of the Broadway musical.
Larson said he wanted to write a musical “to bring musical theater to the MTV generation.” His masterpiece accomplished that and so much more as a timeless look at the lives of young artists and musicians struggling to create art and to survive.
Mark (Tate Nowacki), an aspiring filmmaker, is the funny, sarcastic, and perceptive narrator of the piece. Nowacki holds the show together convincingly, playing a sympathetic friend and keen observer of the chaos his friends are making of their lives.
Mark’s brooding roommate Roger (Ryan Sternbaum) is grieving over the suicide death of his girlfriend while he deals with his own HIV/AIDS diagnosis. He just wants to write “One Song” that will bring him glory before he too succumbs to the disease. Sternbaum acts the dark, anguished soul role believably but struggles vocally at times.
The actors, unfortunately, are not using headset mics, which would have given the show more of a rock sound and made some of the complicated, fast-paced lyrics easier to understand. It also would have helped save voices from strain in such a vocally demanding show.
Hope Davis is dynamite as Mimi, the dancer at the Cat Scratch Club who tries to bring Roger out of the isolation he has put himself in for six months. Her “Will You Light My Candle” and “Out Tonight” established her character and made her an audience favorite from her first appearance.
Equity actor Peyton Dixon, playing the villain of the piece, Benny, former friend to the group, and now “evil” landlord, is fine in a somewhat thankless role. His resume shows in his ease in playing the part and with his mature acting style.
Lesbian couple Joanne and Maureen and their funny love-hate roller coaster relationship is brought to life with wonderful intensity and intention by Izzy Maxwell and Ava O’Brian. Maxwell, one of the more experienced actors in the cast, shines as a buttoned-up lawyer who seems completely out of her element in the Bohemian culture.
O’Brian is endlessly fun to watch, starting with her crazy one-woman performance of Maureen’s “concert” in an abandoned lot. Her show-stopping song “Over the Moon” had the audience in hysterics and eventually had them “mooing” along with her at the end of the song.
Joanne and Maureen’s powerhouse duet “Take Me or Leave Me” received one of the strongest ovations of the night as they vent their anger with each other.
Aaron J. Dumalag uses his beautiful voice to lend a gravitas and a maturity beyond his years to the role of Tom Collins, described by Mark as a “computer genius, teacher, and vagabond anarchist who ran naked through the Parthenon.”
Tom’s relationship with his colorful partner Angel (Tanner Rex Longshore) is grounded in true love and caring. Their duet “I’ll Cover You” is one of the sweetest moments of the show.
Dumalag’s tragic and heartbreaking solo in the “I’ll Cover You” reprise brings the enormity of the AIDS crisis down to the loss of one single person who was loved by everyone, and most importantly by Tom.
Longshore’s Angel is flamboyant and bigger than life, yet it is the compassion and caring of their character that shines through.
RENT’s energetic ensemble has strong singers, which helps make the full company sound richer. Many of them play multiple roles, which adds humor as well.
The ensemble was especially vocally strong in the songs “Will I?,” “No Day But Today,” and, of course, in the show’s anthem “Seasons of Love.”
While the five-piece band is a talented group of musicians, being stuck out of sight in a back room makes them sound muffled and remote. Placing them onstage would have created more excitement and energy and provided a stronger connection with the singers and the audience.
Instead, the limited space on Zeitgeist’s small stage was used for small tables and chairs along the sides, seating 10 audience members onstage. Distracting at times, this also required awkward blocking to give those seated onstage at least some attention.
RENT’s messages still stand up, resonating in a time when many feel battered, downtrodden, and alone, and when many marginalized communities have targets on their backs.
The show’s lyrics teach that people should live their lives by seizing the moment, sharing loss, and as a communal collective, measuring “their lives in love” by finding ways to connect in “an isolating age.”
Directors Mary Fox and Jess Hughes should be commended for bringing this tremendously challenging and important piece of musical theater back to Duluth after a fifteen-year hiatus.
As the director of that Playhouse production of RENT, it was heartwarming for me to hear Larson’s music brought to life with a talented group of young performers, most of whom weren’t alive when the show first exploded onto the stage and became a worldwide phenomenon.
Information About RENT
By Jonathan Larson
Directed by Jess Hughes & Mary Fox
Remaining Performances
August 2, 3 & 6, 7, 8, 9
All evening shows at 7:30pm – Matinee Sunday the 3rd at 2pm
Location
Zeitgeist Teatro
222 E Superior St, Duluth, MN 55802
Tickets
Box Office: (218) 336-1414 or boxoffice@zeitgeistarts.com
Purchase Online Tickets Here
Next up at Zeitgeist Theater
LA RONDE
By Arthur Schnitzler
Adapted & Directed by Robert Lee
September 25, 26, 27, 28 & October 1, 2, 3, 4
(All evening shows at 7:30pm – Matinee Sunday the 28th at 2pm)
“A provocative and fully contemporary re-imagining of Schnitzler’s notorious play Reigen, known as its French translation, La Ronde. Sexy, literate, emotional, and highly theatrical.” (From Zeitgeist website)
