Observations: RENT, 5 Oct. production
America Reads is such a nice program. They pay well for an interesting job that doesn’t require night or weekend time. Better than that, though, they give out free tickets to RENT. My friend Sisi and I got tickets this morning (she was there early, so we got row C of the mezzanine; thanks!) and went to the 8pm show tonight. During the first act, mostly, I noticed few things about the show in general and of course about the actors. If you haven’t seen it yet, I wouldn’t recommend reading the post; I tried not to make it spoil anything, but still, you wouldn’t want to see it with my opinions already in your head. Otherwise, if you’re interested in these minor details, enjoy! [Note: I object to not italicizing RENT in the title, but I really didn’t have time to figure out how to make that work and I wanted to post tonight. Perhaps having it in all caps will suffice.]
Acting
Mark (Matt Caplan) worried me at first. He …well, he practically lisped some of his early lines. Not that that would have been so terrible, but I was prepared to hear a rather poor Mark. But! he lost the lisp very early on (I’m talking about by the time “Rent” was over), and was actually reminiscent of Anthony Rapp at some points. He was the first actor to make me really understand the “She got you out” line in “Christmas Bells.” He made it seem like he was thanking god or some higher power that Roger had finally left the house; before I had never quite understood what he meant by it besides that Roger was outside now. It’s hard to explain. If you had seen him do what he did, and had been as confused as I had been, you would have appreciated it.
Roger (Cary Shields) was a bit shouty, but it was an improvement from last time. I’m not sure if it was the same actor or not; my other playbills are at home. He took the liberty of adding some notes to “One Song Glory,” but I’m a lot more tolerant of that now than I was four years ago when I first saw RENT. Other than that, he was pretty good.
Mimi (Karmine Alers) has been in the show for a while. I mean, we’ve seen her before, though I don’t know how many times. Since I went in knowing that I thought she was good, I easily let slide the deviations in “Light My Candle.” She doesn’t do “Out Tonight” as well as Rosario, but I guess it’s different when she’s actually jumping around on stage.
Maureen (Ava Gaudet) and Joanne (Merle Dandridge) worked really well together. Maureen had dark hair, like Idina, and did well in “Over the Moon.” I almost considered mooing; maybe next time. Angel (Justin Johnston) and Collins (Destan Owens) also were good together. Angel did not make his voice high enough at some points, but he was very funny in his actions. Benny (D’Monroe) was, like Roger, shouty at times. And he changed a line, saying “We’re out of luck, Alison, the protest is on.” Where does he get off changing Jonathan Larson’s lyrics? I guess where they all get off changing his music….
Colin Hanlon (omg!) had a few minor parts. For those who weren’t there, he was absolutely amazing last summer. He was the closest representation to Anthony Rapp’s original Mark of anyone I’d seen or heard. I couldn’t see him quite as well as last time, and of course his stage time was greatly reduced, but his version of Gordon was equally well-presented. It’s a shame he got shunted to such a small part.
General
This production was particularly interesting since approximately 200 NYU kids were there. I’m of course referring to the whole “couch potatoes at New York University” part. It got some laughs. I had actually completely forgotten that line, its having been cut from the movie and my listening to that soundtrack lately to prepare. The audience was very receptive in general tonight. You could tell that a lot of them had seen RENT before, since they anticipated entrances, etc. It wasn’t only that, though. People laughed a lot at certain parts (like Angel’s funny movements or Maureen’s role in the beginning of “La Vie Boheme”).
It bothers me that in the movie soundtrack, dialogue parts like “Could never be a theater person” are cut out of the songs. It seems to bother the actors in the show now too. Some of those parts were said really loudly, as if the actors were trying to compensate for their being cut from the movie. Something really pleased me, though. There are a few lines in “Christmas Bells” that are very hard to hear on the OBC cd and even in the show if you aren’t watching Mark’s and Roger’s mouths. Tonight those lines were the loudest; it was the first time I could clearly hear them, and I felt sure that a lot of the other theater-goers picked them up as well. [Oh! Ricky just reminded me about how the renovations were to fix the sound system. Perhaps that’s why those lines were much more clear and loud.]
I also noticed two things about the choreography tonight. I never noticed before, but the waiter in “La Vie Boheme” joins in with the bohemians in singing against Benny and Mr. Grey. That’s not really a big deal, just some pleasant interesting thing. What is kind of absurd to me, though, is “Santa Fe.” It really is just like Collins, Angel, and Mark sitting in the lot singing, and then all of these uninvolved homeless people start dancing around behind them. I know that a lot of people criticize musical theater because people just burst into song and everyone knows the lyrics and the movements, but this is different. It’s pretty clear in this song that it isn’t one of those impossible musical moments, and yet everyone suddenly starts dancing and singing. I don’t know, but from my experience homeless people don’t jump off their benches and start dancing when musicians set to work in the park. Maybe lot homeless people are different.
Most of the details I picked up on were in the first act. Perhaps I was too absorbed by the time the second act came around that I didn’t bother with petty differences. Overall, it was a good production. I can’t say it was the best I’ve ever seen, because I know the cast last summer with Colin Hanlon as Mark was probably better, and that was the best. But of course I can’t say that it was worse, either, because that would be a disappointment. So, it was good, it was different. Seven times now.