One hundred years after the first performance of La Boheme, a remarkable musical opened at the New York Theater Workshop. The timing may have been a coincidence, but it was an enormous boost to the show, which, while profoundly, raucously contemporary, drew its characters and storyline from Puccini's great romantic opera.
But nobody could have predicted that Rent's heart-rending portrayal of the hard-edged side of city life, with its spiralling rent increases and litany of AIDS and drug-related deaths among young East Side dwellers, would dwindle almost to nothing in comparison with the terrible experience of the show's creator, Jonathan Larson. Just an hour after the final dress rehearsal in January 1996, Larson died from an aortic aneurysm. He was 35.
Rent went on to take the world stage by storm, winning a string of prestigious awards. But such were the poignant circumstances of its birth, and such is the resulting reverence in which it is held, that its book, music and lyrics have been largely untouched by successive production teams.
And so it is that, for all the grit of its message, the immediacy and punch of its live score and the charisma of its characters, one is left with a sneaking feeling of a job not quite completed, of a show whose impact is superficial and whose potentially interesting agendas have not been fully articulated.
Still, there are some tremendous performances in this new Leicester Haymarket Theatre touring production, notably from Debbie Kurup as the sexy, tangle-haired junkie Mimi; Mykal Rand as the college lecturer Tom Collins, who finds sweet love with Neil Couperthwaite's adorable drag queen Angel; and Jane Doyle, whose ferociously sung spat with her girlfriend Joanne (Wendy Mae Brown) has fur and nails flying all over the place.
The Hungarian designer Kentaur, in partnership with lighting designer Chris Ellis, has used every inch of this big space for one of the best stagings seen here in a long time, and Gareth Howard's band pound out a live set for which aspiring DJs would give their right arms.
Runs until June 16th. Bookings on 048-9024 1919
