Doc Martens were hot enough to figure into repeated lyrics. Answering machines on home phone lines were how parents communicated with their adult children. Teaching a class in “computer-age philosophy” sounded like a trippy, futuristic job. Welcome to 1996.
I remember it well, but the cast of Signature Theatre‘s new production of Rent likely doesn’t. And that’s a good thing. Twenty-five years after its Broadway debut, auteur Jonathan Larson’s swan song could easily be a dusty period piece, little more than a collection of winking references to rubber pants and trash talk shows. But with a young, vital cast, Signature Theatre artistic director Matthew Gardiner works magic, bringing the 125-year-old story (it’s based on Puccini’s opera La Bohème, after all) to vivid life.
He’s aided by Signature Theatre’s space itself. The black-box theater fits just 270 masked-and-vaccinated souls. That means an experience so intimate that the audience smells the wax as Mimi blows out the flame in “Light My Candle.” “This must be what it was like to see Hair in the ’60s,” my companion aptly commented.
Not exactly. The sex and drug references no longer shock. Most of us now have a trans person that we love in our lives. The show captures a time and place, but it cannot completely transport our jaded brains back a quarter-century. But it seduces nonetheless.
Sadly, this doesn’t owe much to Larson’s own accomplishments. Though his score shows promise, his death at the age of 35 meant that the multi-hyphenate never reached the wit of his idol, Signature staple Stephen Sondheim, nor achieved the memorable tunes of his forebear Puccini. The best melody in the show is “Musetta’s Waltz” from La Bohème. Lyrics tend toward the pragmatic, often leaning on mawkish imagery to draw out feelings. One of the more memorable songs, “Without You,” sung with raw emotion by central lovers rocker Roger Davis (Vincent Kempski) and dancer Mimi Marquez (Arianna Rosario) includes lyrics like, “The stars gleam, the poets dream, the eagles fly, without you.”
Perhaps it’s a blessing, then, that the competition between the excellent five-piece band and the singers often results in lyrics that don’t quite land on the ear. The show’s big opener, “Rent,” in which Roger and his roommate, aspiring director Marc Cohen (Jake Loewenthal), burn their eviction notices and resolve, “We’re not gonna pay/Last year’s rent/This year’s rent/Next year’s rent” is mostly lost to echoey mics in an attempt to make the actors heard over the blistering guitars. The echoes are mostly resolved by the end of the first scene, but the difficulty hearing the actors remains.
This is a shame, because they’re an impressive bunch. Kempski, in a Kurt Cobain-style getup of T-shirt, flannel knotted around the waist, and cozy cardigan, is a sensitive Roger, more sad than angry about his death sentence of an HIV infection and messed-up love life. As his paramour, Rosario is cute as a button, portraying the 19-year-old Mimi’s naivete, despite her job being tied up at a bondage club.
There are some pieces of theater in which the ensemble cast’s roles seem to expand or contract in accordance with the charisma of the actors playing them. In the case of this Rent, that makes David Merino as Angel Dumott Schunard the leading player. Looking like a stretched-out Silly Putty Judy Garland in Angel’s towering high heels, it’s nearly impossible to take one’s eyes off Merino’s easy, patent-leather-red smile. Their “Today 4 U” is one of the songs lost to sound issues, but their facile splits and death drop win fans. They make Angel’s death scene, which can feel parodic in its camp in lesser productions, gut-wrenching and star-making.
But there are no small actors in this bunch. The ensemble soars, with voices worthy of solos, and sharp choreography from Rickey Tripp. Loewenthal is winning as Mark. As lawyer Joanne Jefferson and performance artist Maureen Johnson, Ines Nassara and Katie Mariko Murray offer up an incendiary “Take Me or Leave Me,” with chemistry to spare.
And chemistry is key in this production. Because the audience is so close to the performers, we see every expression, every backward glance. Much of the character development takes place when the spotlight is on other actors. Gardiner expertly advances plots and relationships wordlessly in these moments between the characters’ big numbers. The connections we see between the performers extends to us as an audience. As we return to the theater, we are all a part of a shared experience. And at Signature Theatre’s Rent, this immediacy is very exciting, even if the story is an old one.
Feature image by Christopher Mueller
