RENT the Movie...Wasn't Broadway Enough?
Ramsey keeps pinging me to talk about RENT the Movie, and his post on the subject...so here goes. Parent Advisory: If you're a huge RENT fan, you might not want to read any further...
OK, RENT was a cultural phenomenon without compare, in the late '90s. And Jonathan Larson's death on opening night (for the Off-Broadway Workshop) was so poetically tragic that it added to the legend.
Also, let's face it, this musical was feted almost beyond compare: 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; four 1996 Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Score of a Musical); six drama Desk Awards (including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Music and Best Lyrics); Best Musical Awards from the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle (Off-Broadway); and three Obie Awards (including Outstanding Book, Music and Lyrics); the Richard Rodgers Production Award; the Richard Rodgers Development Grant; the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Theatre Foundation's Commendation Award.
So, honestly, who cares what I think? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. In my opinion, RENT isn't finished. It's too long, and there are too many songs. It drags like crazy in the Second Act. And I'd like to believe that if Jonathan had survived to see it on the stage in front of an audience, he would have modified it.
I can't even imagine what the movie is going to be like...but since they always cut songs in the movie versions of musicals (although I'm watching Phantom of the Opera right now as I write this and it seems pretty unaltered...), there's a good possibility that the movie version of RENT will fix the length and song problems that bother me.
Who knows, like Chicago, this may be one musical that works well on film. Long live movie musicals!
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That said - there are several great and beautiful songs that have really grown on me to become favorites. The links to "La Boheme," if you know the opera, are fun to find. And all in all, it's really a great thing to see younger, newer voices on the Broadway stage, who can talk about sex, and swear, and be hip. I think Rent really paved the way for "Urinetown," "Avenue Q" and "The Putnam County Spelling Bee."