All my friends knew the words to Rent songs, starting in grade 5 when one of them must have seen it in Toronto, or got their hands on a CD (or was it still tapes then?) of the soundtrack. I didn’t appreciate the “light my candle” references, and I didn’t think it was necessary to ‘moo’ with anybody because I ad no idea what Rent was. Some musical, I guess.
A tour of it came through Ottawa when we were in grade 12, and so many people liked it, I figured it’d be worth the $40 or so to see it with my diehard Rent fan friends. They brought along their CDs, and blared the soundtrack from my parent’s Subaru all the way downtown. I didn’t let on that I still had never seen it. I tried to sing along the way we all try to do when we don’t really know the words: I kept my voice low and faked each syllable, hoping decibel-breaching level of my friends’ singalong would drown me out.
We sat in our seats, and saw there was an empty balcony spot empty. Using our developed smarmy charismatic teenage girl skills, we filled up the balcony spot with our giggles, coats, jean purses and Orangina.
The show started. I recognized songs from my friends’ impromptu concerts, although these performers hit more ear-pleasing notes. :) The intermission came and the lights came up and I was lost. What had just happened? Some struggling artists had sang some songs and I know it was around Christmastime because of the stage props, but otherwise, I had no idea what was going on. Why did she need her candle lit? And were they really singing about killing a dog?
The play ended and all I could gather was that one of them had died, but even that was hard to “get” because the scene was played out with wind-blown white sheets, symbolic dancing and subsequent actors’ grief.
We left and I tried to play scenes over in my head, figuring out what Rent was about and secondly, why people liked a play that was so convoluted and difficult to understand.
Internet was around at this point, so when I got home, I researched Rent plot synopses. I really should have done that before the show, because a light bulb went off in my head, “oooh, they had AIDS...”
I read a few more and finally pieced together critics’ descriptions with the scenes I had just observed. It made sense, but my initial confusion was not saved, and I remained a tentative fan of Rent, for the sake of my friends.
It really wasn’t until the movie came out (this admission is lame and so not-cultured of me, I know) that I saw detail, facial expressions and finally understood the hidden meanings to things. “Oh! she dropped her bag of drugs...”
And it was like an awakening. As the movie came to an end I actually cried at the funeral and gave a little cheer when Mimi woke up. It was so nice to have some more clues, like figuring out who April was, and that Maureen was protesting something I now understood.
Either way, the DVD came out and I watched it and the behind the scenes features as I usually do. It was then I learned of the story of Jon Larson and the whole movie/play was elevated to a whole new level of appreciation in my mental realm of understanding.
The poor dude was writing about the life around him in poor New York: AIDS, poverty, Jewishness, making it. He based it on Puccini’s La Boheme, sure enough, but the play was his life, his songs, seven years of his work. And then right before it was supposed to open, he died of a heart aneurysm. He didn’t even get to see the labour of his love play for an audience.
Rent’s near 12-year Broadway run is scheduled to end, the New York Times told me today. Ticket sales are down and the diehard Rent head lineups aren’t as long every morning. (I know my friends would totally be in that line if we lived in Brooklyn).
It made me kind of sad that it won’t keep playing (live on Broadway, anyway). But at least now, community and high school theaters can start performing it, making it more accessible to the people who will likely “get” the play better than I. I hope.
So this is my ode to Rent, the songs I now sing in the shower and while stirring pasta in my kitchen. The words to which I reaad from my own soundtrack CD jacket and memorized.

Labels: high school, music