By Dennis Wemm
THEATRE CRITIC
Rent, by Jonathan Larson
Produced by Fredericksburg Theatre Ensemble; directed by Devon Clark
For dramaturgical notes on the play see TL/DR at the end of the review.
Fredericksburg Theatre Ensemble’s production of Jonathan Larson’s Rent gives the show the staging it deserves.
The story of a group of lost and broke young people in the wilds of the unfeeling big city has been retold as long as young people have moved to huge urban centers. They are forced to deal with the problem of finding their own way in the face of a society that doesn’t really want them and a world that doesn’t care. Theirs is a true fight for survival both physical and spiritual. They can only succeed by being absolutely true to themselves and their chosen means of expression. For more about the dramaturgy of the show read the TL/DR.
Marc is a movie director. He’s our point -f-view character simply because he guides us through the intricate workings of the society to which he belongs. Well, that he wishes to belong to. Marc wants to belong but holds everyone and everything at a critical distance and comments. He also judges them by a high standard. (Answering machine vignettes hint to us he gets this from his mom.) They are broke and squatting in an apartment in a former industrial building that features an illegal wood burning stove — a large trash can.
Marc’s roommate is Roger, a rock and roll front man who has survived the suicide of his girlfriend. He’s not likely to survive the HIV infection that makes him distance himself from everyone but Marc and his guitar. Roger and Marc are an odd couple who only survive their friendship by a combination of mutual affection and toxic criticism.
We’re seeing them after the breakup of a larger group of friends: Marc had a girlfriend, Maureen, a performance artist who left him for a lawyer, Joanne.
Bennie took up a life of marriage and success-seeking. His wife is wealthy but her father owns the former industrial building that Bennie used to share with Marc and Roger. They now see him as “yuppie scum.”
The fourth former roommate is Tom Collins, a computer whiz who has both AIDS and a need to call society’s attention to the disease. He’s lost a teaching job at MIT and arrives broke on Roger and Marc’s doorstep only to be mugged for his coat.
Angel is a cross-dressing drummer without drums — she uses plastic tubs. She’s recently received a bunch of cash in payment for instigating a doggy suicide (and for trimming a tree). She discovers the injured Collins on the street, and after a stop for supplies they arrive at the old apartment. Where Bennie is now demanding the rent for the past year. Cue title song.
This happens in the first 20 minutes of the show. Two things:
You really, really have to listen to the lyrics
Uou really, really have to remember the details of what the characters sing — it’s necessary to understand the context of the rest of the show.
Okay, so reviewing the performance:
What Is Attempted?
To bring to life and make relevant a 1990s show that celebrates a lifestyle from the 1980s in 2025. And they do it, because the story is so powerful, and also because the performances are so square-on to the author’s intents for the stories. Songs are not so much performed as they are shared with the audience. The limited size of the performance space helps. So much passion set less than 50 feet from most of the audience draws you in and enforces empathy and attention. The positivity of the message, delivery (and the music) contrasts with the bleak outlook the situation evokes.
The staging is well laid out. The stage becomes the apartment, a New York street with an empty lot, a local restaurant, a funeral, all with minimal changes of scene and furniture. The directing strategies and the impact of the story lines are clear and do not get in the way of the musical flow. This is handy because Larson’s score has no filler music for changes other than the logistics of getting all those people physically onto the stage.
Other technical elements, costumes, lights, sound, and properties all work both to establish where we are, who our characters are, and support the casting choices (most of the principal actors remain in their main character, but the ensemble members might become new characters with a quick costume change). Confusion is minimized by the speed of the narrative and by the fact that inner character emotions and conflicts are sung on the surface. Characters sing their inner monologues for us while lying and keeping secrets from each other.
The stage is lit to reflect time of day, interior, or exterior, and whether the power is on or being blacked out. Sound is reinforced with headset mics, and the music is a pre-recorded playback which works very well for this production (you’re not really given time to think about it because the score moves on with brisk speed). Props are minimal, but appropriate and well in context for the show’s time period and place.
How Well Was It Done?
The miracle of this production comes from the acting ensemble and their clear affection for the style, content, and message of the play. Audiences can always tell when a performer’s energy is practiced technique and when the performer is really sharing themselves with you, and this cast is not faking it. The term in performance is “attack.” It reflects the passion of the artist for the work.
The action is propelled along so well and so naturally that the somewhat dated circumstances of the plotline become fresh and new (think Hamilton for the 1980s). I have seen two pro performances, the movie, and the “live” television adaptation and I find that the overall production compares very favorably to the pro performers.
There are some issues: sound balance for some moments was uneven, due to an overactive bass line sometimes drowning out singers’ diction at least for house left, and a microphone dead zone for performers on stage left, unfortunately covering up a lot of expository pay phone calls. No reflection on the performers, I just wouldn’t have known what they were saying if I didn’t know some of the songs by heart. No, I didn’t sing along.
The action centers on the group of nine friends whose group dynamics are way too complicated to relate. If the point of a murder mystery is the gradual revelation of the truth (with no spoilers), the gradual realization of personal truths in conflict with each other is the point of an ensemble drama. It’s easy to experience but impossible to analyze in a few hundred words. Just see the darned thing.
Was It Worth Doing?
As long as young people have to spend their lives in conflict with each other, with society, with physical and financial circumstance, with the condition of their bodies, with the shock of self-discovery, and with a grinding sense of despair of acceptance, Rent will be a relevant social document and artistic achievement.
At this point I would normally attempt to give a mention of outstanding cast performances. While I hate it myself picking up a review of my show and not seeing my name I have to say that the entire ensemble does their work too well for that. Having seen a large number of the cast in other roles over the years I have to say that the fit of actor to role and the preparation of each performance is such that I have no desire to pick and choose.
Normally when watching to respond to a performance, I keep running notes of things that bother me or that I would say to a play that I was directing. Then I can forget about the nitpicking and review the overall performance on its own merits. My list of nits is so short that it’s practically non-existent.
Jonathan Larson died just before the first preview of the original off-Broadway production of Rent. I can’t help but think of how pleased he would be to see this amateur production, thirty years later.
You really should see this show.
The following warnings are published by FTE:
No one under the age of 18 permitted without a parent or legal guardian. Not recommended for younger audiences. NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINK PERMITTED. No recording devices allowed during the performance as is prohibited by law.
Trigger warnings: drug/alcohol abuse, adult language and content, depictions of death, depictions of the unhoused.
TL/DR
In 1862, Victor Hugo’s sprawling novel of human survival in the face of poverty, injustice, and inhumane governance presented a young charismatic group of students who believe in truth, beauty, sharing the wealth, and educating the masses as they defend their integrity. Les Miserables dealt with issues on a national, local, and personal level. It dealt with love, pain, compassion, and death as challenges for the young group and showed how hope can be reborn out of despair. It also had many artistic descendants that have populated culture and fascinated audiences in performance, each one rewriting the urban tragedy to suit the times and the performance styles of the age.
In the beginning there was an opera, celebrating the difficulty of life as an artist/intellectual in Paris in 1896, La Boheme. It featured a rag-tag group of young people who comes together as a found family, forming a bond that sustains them as it supports their individualism. They opposed convention and supported each other’s lifestyle in the face of TB and conventional disapproval. It was inventive and is still on lists as one of the greats.
In the 1960’s, Rado and Ragni brought the story forward as a group of young people with lots of Hair. The young people form a found family to support and accept individuality. They moved the city to New York, and the problem was not disease but war. In part it was responsible for removing the hippie and antiwar movements out of the lunatic fringes of 50’s conventions and into the center spotlight as a shaper of national policy. Both works helped define their ages.
In 1996 a young waiter/composer/playwright named Jonathan Larson did the same thing for the unconventional living in New York in the late 1980’s. The crisis was AIDS and the death toll was rising, the economy was recessing, and corporatism was overtaking and absorbing individual expression. Punk was giving way to grunge and young people were disaffectedly forming a reaction to the other forces facing the 1980s including corporate exclusivity.
In 2001, the film version of Moulin Rouge! retold the tale of the hapless young people through the lens of Baz Luhrman’s camera, infused it with angsty pop music and made it dance.
Dennis Wemm is a retired professor of theatre and communication, having taught and led both departments at Glenville State College for 34 years. In his off time he was president and sometimes Executive Director of the West Virginia Theatre Conference, secretary and president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and generally enjoyed a life in theatre.
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