I've had a few glasses of wine, so I'm gonna talk about the filmed stage production I saw today.
I saw "RENT" today. I am very used to the original cast as my beloved friends and characters. Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal's voices will never be anything but Mark and Roger to me. There is a comfort in the original cast, a real sense of knowing that they all shared (there are exceptions).
When this production started, I was immediately endeared to Adam Kantor as the new Mark (because Mark is an endearing character) but I wasn't completely sold on him until they really got into the first 'song' song ("RENT"). It was then that I realized that perhaps Adam Kantor was the first Mark who was
actually straight (or at least not incredibly 'gay' like Anthony Rapp or Neil Patrick Harris).
The new Roger (Will Chase) was increasingly harder to like for a few reasons:
1) He's not Adam Pascal
2) He's not me
3) He's kind of ugly
4) He's wearing emo black nailpolish and eye-shadow. I mean, I suppose he isn't 'emo' since he has something legitimate to whine about but still, black nailpolish?
He gave it some sugar in "Rent" but it wasn't until "One Song Glory" that I really realized that Chase was a phenomenal actor - bringing subtlety and nuance to the character that would usually be completely lost in a stage production. It was great to see it up close.
Collins was another one that it took a while to warm up to. Collins and Roger are my favourite characters, which explains a lot of why I was such a hater at first. I have to say I never really warmed up to this sort-of-stoned gaze and no-belting-allowed attitude that Michael McElroy had, but his chemistry with the two boys was really genuine and nice to see, and their moment in the finale (the coooooooode) was really touching.
Someone I could not get over was Rodney Hicks as Benny. He was certainly the weak link in this cast. Perhaps the craziness of the last night got to him, but he was too jovial and stage-ey for a production as subdued and morose as RENT. With the character of Benny, a billion things are implied (AIDS, self-hatred, etc.) but never mentioned, and Hicks seemed to miss all of them, flittering about the stage with no purpose or motivation, just a desire to say his lines and sing the right notes. Blah.
We've seen Tracie Thoms as Joanne in the terrible film version, where she delivered, and she delivers twice as awesomely live. Eden Espinosa was basically a photocopy of Idina Menzel, but one where the edges were stretched accidentally so it looks a little weird.
Angel...
Angel is a terrible role. We all know this. He is just an awful fucking character, a foil to the rest of the cast. He comes in and is '~*MAGIC*~' for a while, and is so fabulously gay and crazy that it's a taboo to hate him. But I do, I truly do, and the only reason I tolerate his character is because of the hopeless black void that appears after he is dead. And because we need Collins to be both incredibly happy and incredibly sad at certain times in the play.
That being said, no one can live up to Heredia but Justin Johnson does an adequate job at portraying an empty mentor/victim role, a la Mena Suvari as Aeris Gainsborough. Ugh. I hate foil characters. WHY CAN'T YOU GIVE THEM A PERSONALITY AS WELL?!?!? I'm talking to you, ghost of Jonathan Larson.
Something I've always hated Jonathan Larson for is Mimi. I realized today that Mimi is an incredible character, and Jonathan Larson is in fact the genius that I have always advertised him to be.
I'm not going to lie. I was choked during "One Song Glory" but the first actual tear came in the most unexpected of times. During "Out Tonight."
Yes.
What?
Renee Elsie Goldberry was incredible. Coming from Daphne Rubin-Vega and Rosario Dawson, the entire song of "Out Tonight" is a diva show, a sort of showcase for how cool and sexy Mimi is and how stupid Roger is for not tapping that. There is certainly an element of that in Goldberry's version (holy shit she has a six pack!) but there is a desperation and darkness there that I've never seen before in Mimi.
During the bridge of "Out Tonight." the lyrics go like this:
In the evening, I've got to roam. I can't sleep in this city of neon and chrome. It feels too damn much like home - where the Spanish babies cry. So, let's find a bar so dark we forget who we are and all the scars of the 'never's and 'maybe's die.I have never heard those lyrics performed so authentically. I realized while watching that it's really the meat of Mimi's character, whereas all other versions of her sort of throw it in as a side-note, more of a comment on the dark city than the desperate, drug-addicted character who is just as afraid of reality as Roger is.
Knowing this about Mimi makes her preachiness in the following song "Another Day" so ironic, so brilliantly fake that it become obvious that she is parroting the "Life Support" credo. If one has a brain, they will make the connection that Mimi is from Life Support, is sick, and knows Angel. No more surprises. Knowing that makes the shouting match between Roger and Mimi anything but the back-and-forth "I'm angsty" "Live for today" "I'm afraid" fight that we're used to. Instead, it is a terrifyingly real battle between two people so afraid of themselves that they're tearing each other apart. BUT WHILE THAT IS HAPPENING, Mimi's hypocritical, pathetic tirade is still echoing Larson's intended message to Roger, proving that while Mimi is incredibly misguided, and a hypocrite, she manages to do some good.
(as a side note, Chase and Goldberry had incredible, believable chemistry that Pascal and R-V did not have at all. Because R-V is a cow)
So aside from Benny's "hay guys were on stage rite now yay" smirk, and Collin's consistent refusal to belt like a man (even during the "I'll Cover You" reprise, which was still effective but my head didn't explode - which is should have) the new cast did very well in meeting my very very high bar.
The original cast did a great job at fucking up RENT with the movie version, so I guess we're even now, since the version I'm going to buy has the new cast, strangers even after going on a journey with them, but there is love there that will last.
Oh, and I don't doubt it is coming to DVD, and I will dish out the $200 to get my grubby hands on it, because it was frankly incredible.
I did not cry when I watched the original cast on a pirated videotape in the middle of the night (this is because my environment would not permit me and I was constantly aware of that). The film version made me cry once. The filmed-stage version had me either in tears or in shivers consistently for two and a half hours (intermission exluded). When it comes out on DVD, we will sit and watch it, and the tears they will come.
On a side note, did you know that Norbert Leo Butz was Adam Pascal's understudy in 1996 and that was his stage debut? And the person to take over Maureen's role right after Idina Menzel was Sherie Rene Scott? Whoooa..
