Chris Eldon Lee reviews ‘Rent’, which is at Theatre Clwyd until Saturday 12th November.
Last night’s audience gave Theatre Clwyd’s production of ‘Rent’ a one hundred per cent standing ovation. The title is two-fold…about the inability of the poor to pay their rent, and the rent that was ripped in the fabric of society by AIDS.
In its own time, this show was a sensation. Like ‘Hair’ in the 60s, ‘Rent’ in the 90s brought the whole concept of musical theatre screaming towards the 21st century. Gone were polite romances and tired, simple scenarios. In came the new, up-to-the-minute complex issues. In the late 80s, when ‘Rent’ was being developed, the biggest issue was the untreatable spread of AIDS. People were scared. People were dying. Even Conservative little old Radio Shropshire was running a pretty explicit campaign about how to ‘prevent and protect’. Gay men became front line interviewees. There were no-nonsense jingles to drive the message home.
Since then, life in the Western World (at least) has moved on. We’ve got the message. AIDS is no longer an inevitable death sentence. So much of the main thrust of ‘Rent’ is dissipated. Which leaves the musical as something of a museum piece. But if you go to see this 20th Anniversary production on that pre-text, you will have a revelatory evening.
What hasn’t changed are destitution and homelessness. Puccini portrayed the poverty of his bohemian artistic quarter with great passion and sincerity in his opera La Boheme… and Jonathan Larson did the same for East New York with his rock musical based on the same story. The fact that he died an avoidable death between the dress rehearsal and the first night has turned it into a theatrical legend. It also makes criticism a heresy. Nevertheless, there are strengths and weaknesses.
Working against it are : the rather unappealing, grunge-dressed characters circling in a multi-layered storyline and belting out a wall of sound. Some of the lyrical rhymes made me wince. “Where is he? Getting diz-zy” (on drugs).
Working in its favour are : a remarkably powerful and inventive range of exciting songs, a great sense that history was being made by it, and some absolute top-draw musical theatre performances.
The biggest cheer at the curtain call was for Layton Williams who plays Angel. (The show spans two Christmases … in which there is “no room at the Holiday Inn”). His drag queen Michael Jackson dance solo is a stunning first-half show stopper … and his helpless, hospital death scene a second-half heart stopper. The stark, simple, sung line “Will I Lose My Dignity?” encapsulates the whole emotion of the AIDS community back then…and the cancer community today.
There is a beautifully constructed love song “Light My Candle” between the struggling musician Roger (played with warm humanity by Ross Hunter) and the drug taking dancer Mimi (a hugely athletic star turn by Phillippa Stefani). The candle is passed between them…lit, blown out, and re-lit…as a touching allegory for their future relationship. It’s a pity about Roger’s frustrated opening gambit though: “Who do you think you are? Barging in on me and my guitar”… as he tries to write one lasting love song before it’s too late. Larson’s sudden death made that a legendary moment too.
Director Bruce Guthrie – and Theatre Clwyd – have been brave and bold and ballsie in re-staging this show…and it’s superbly done. Driving to the theatre I did wonder what it would have to say to comfortable, present-day North Wales. Stepping into a half-filled Friday night auditorium, my fears were heightened. But the tumultuous ovation washed them all away. If you have any interest at all in the evolutionary arc of musical theatre … you really do have to see it.
Visit www.theatrclwyd.com for bookings & information about Theatr Clwyd.