Musical Theatre / “RENT” Book, Lyrics and Music by Jonathan Larson. Directed by Shaun Rennie. Canberra Theatre. Until June 15.
Reviewed by SAMARA PURNELL.
Look at the ever-increasing number of people living on the streets around Canberra, Melbourne or Sydney. Every day there’s another sign on another door telling of a small business closing, between COVID and lease agreements, rent, rates and inflation, they can’t survive any longer. The fentanyl and opioid crisis, which Time reports as the worst addiction epidemic in American history kills over 64,000 Americans a year. The photos of queues for foodbanks in Footscray last week were deemed a new normal. People are suffering, people are struggling and people are angry.
The characters in “Rent” embody similar struggles. As the AIDS epidemic killed tens of thousands across America through the 1990’s, Jonathan Larson set his musical. With the characters, storyline and even how they meet, copied directly from Puccini’s “La Boheme”, “Rent” opens with the angry and frustrated Roger (Jerrod Smith) dealing with the hopelessness he feels with the news his ex-girlfriend and he have contracted HIV. She’s taken her own life. He’s desperately trying to create a legacy of one great song before he dies.
His flatmate Mark (Noah Mullins) is strapped to a cam-corder for the duration of the musical, which covers a year in the life of the characters. An innocuous character, Mark is hoping to become a documentary maker. His girlfriend, Maureen, has just left him for Joanne. Calista Nelmes does a brilliant job as the passionate, short-tempered, melodramatic, bisexual flirt Maureen. She, and Thndo as Joanne, perform a powerhouse dual in “Take Me or Leave Me”. Some may recognise these two singers from the top handful of contestants in recent series of “The Voice”. It’s wonderful casting.
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Mimi (Martha Berhane), a drug addicted stripper becoming progressively sicker from her addiction and the AIDS taking hold of her body, will solicit and betray herself to secure her next hit, but takes a shine to Roger, who pushes her away to deal with his own anguish. Berhane breezes her way through her songs with a sweet and confident voice that leaves you wanting more. Her tiny frame fits the storyline, her “Out Tonight” was performed in a gorgeous sexy outfit, from costume designer Ella Butler. Not as extraverted and emphatic in her routine as Rosario Dawson in the 2005 movie, but her look is captivating and her voice beguiling.
When Tom Collins (Nick Afoa) stumbles across drag queen and good-hearted Angel (performed in Canberra by Chad Rosete after the departure of Carl de Villa from the role) a warm and loving relationship begins. Their songs and harmonies provide some of the highlights and most moving moments of the show. The playful “I’ll Cover You” with its lovely harmonies is reprised later by a heart-broken Collins, the beautiful, warm timbre of his voice and his heart-wrenching performance audibly affecting the audience.
Impressive solos from the ensemble (Theodore Williams and Hannah McInerney, the sister of Meg Mac) open the second act of “Rent”, with the show-stopping “Seasons of Love”.
As relationships break down and friends die Mimi sings “Without You” - a punch to the heart that accurately sums up that as individual lives fall apart, the world marches on.
Intense lighting design from Paul Jackson has spotlights, brightlights, backlights, and shafts of light cast across Dann Barber’s set. The dirty windows and aptly scungy, grungy and cluttered set works a treat with scaffolding that moves seamlessly from apartment block to strip club to performance space.
The costuming and prop design of Maureen’s “Over the Moon” is effective and appropriately wacky. Nelmes knocks this number out of the ballpark. But getting the Canberra audience to join in is often a thankless task.
The ensemble number “La Vie Boheme” is staged and paced to perfection, as the disaffected characters stick it to Benny (Tana Laga’aia) - once their flatmate, now their landlord, hellbent on evicting them and gentrifying their ghettos and performance spaces. Laga’aia’s voice is lovely, although the role doesn’t provide a large amount of singing. The closing of art spaces and apartment living in cities encroaching on venues has and continues to anger artists, musicians and the community and Maureen and company are passionately protesting it.
The reverential “Will I” that attendees at meetings for AIDS sufferers quietly sing is brutally emotional and poignant. “Living in America at the end of the Millenium, you’re what you own…and if you’re dying in america…you’re not alone”, is just as apt now, only thankfully now a diagnosis of HIV is no longer an automatic death sentence.
There was the occasional pitchy note and a little breathlessness after some of the physical numbers. The band is consistently good. “Rent” is full of tuneful and memorable numbers, harmonies and reprises, including the iconic finale “No Day But Today” where the AIDS support group, apartment dwellers, artists and beggars implore us to “Forget regret, because there’s only now. There’s only here. No day but today”
Where Puccini’s opera has Mimi die, “Rent” sees relationships fray and mend, people die and compromise themselves, but in the spirit of Angel, they find their way through and it ends with a glimmer of hope, at least for the moment. The projected film during the finale, as Mark’s footage, delivers the final effective and emotional punch.
“Rent’s” first performance in Sydney in 1998, starring Christine Anu, saw a generational (and personal) love affair began with this musical and now new audiences are experiencing this depiction of the power of finding your “people”, grasping onto a thread of hope in grief, kindness, love, artistic passions and living in the moment.
“Rent” confronts with its realities, warms with its melodies and moves with its emotion. It’s about the horror of aids and poverty, but finding the joyous moments in grief and the beauty in life and love.
