Overdue ‘Rent’ gets glorious re-telling at NSMT

By Rich Fahey

BOSTON – Welcome to Beverly, “Rent-heads.” The good news is that the North Shore Music Theatre has done right by your baby.

About three decades after it first exploded on Broadway, “Rent,” the iconic musical that inspired millions of younger people to come to the theater again and again has made its way to the North Shore. The good news is that the NSMT production checks all the boxes a musical can check: strong voices, spot-on casting, NSMT’s always-strong production values, lovely direction and choreography by Marcos Santana, and a tight six-piece band beautifully belting out Jonathan Larson’s Tony-winning rock score.

The Boston area has been a landing spot for many productions of “Rent” since the first national tour began in Boston in November 1996, opening at the Shubert Theatre and running for a record-breaking 29 weeks. With Boston’s huge numbers of college students, the show has been welcomed back again and again.

We’ll never know, of course, what Larson would have become. He died on January 25, 1996, the night before “Rent” debuted off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on Jan. 26.

Based loosely on the opera “La Boheme,” “Rent” tells the story of a year in the lives of poor young artists in New York City’s East Village, struggling to survive and create a life in the thriving days of the  Boheminan Alphabet City, set against the background of the HIV-AIDS crisis.

“Rent” went on to become a cultural phenomenon, winning four Tony Awards in 1996, the Pulitzer Prize, then running for more than 5,000 performances on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre, before becoming a 2005 movie and even being presented live on TV in 2019. It sparked the careers of actors such as Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin and Anthony Rapp.

No musical has ever spoke so eloquently to a generation as did “Rent,” and the scourge that was the AIDS epidemic, at a time when the disease had yet to be contained and was still a death sentence for many. Now it works more as a period piece, but a very effective period piece.

“Rent” spoke to young people in a way no musical has before or since, and it also showcased  characters who had hardly been staples of the American musical scene: Angel (Isaiah Rose Garcia), the drag queen with a heart of gold who finds a perfect partner in the brilliant Tom Collins (Aaron Arnell Harrington), the computer whiz who finds life on the street as fulfilling as his alter ego as a university professor;  and Joanne Jefferson (Kat Rodriguez), the lesbian lawyer with a political bent whose lover is the dynamic and sexy performance artist Maureen Johnson (Cate Hayman).

At the center of it all are aspiring photojournalist Mark Cohen (Aaron Alcaraz), who was once with Maureen and is far removed his roots in suburban Scarsdale, and his best friend Roger Davis (Austin Turner), a singer/songwriter who has withdrawn from life after both he and his partner were diagnosed with AIDS, and she subsequently died. He is clean after battling drug addiction but still in the East Village building – apparently a former warehouse — where he and Mark are squatters with privileges.

Roger is still in mourning when an exotic dancer named Mimi Marquez (Didi Romero) walks into his life (“Light My Candle”) and does her best to lift him up. She has taken up with wealthy landlord Benjamin Coffin III (Kristopher Stanley Ward) but her real feelings are with Roger.

“Rent” is loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Boheme,” and pays tribute to that not only in its characters and structure but in the rousing production number “La Vie Boheme.”bert

Conductor/Music Director Robert L. Rucinski rocks out with the rest of the tight six-piece band that gives the Larson score its full due, including “One Song Glory,” “I’ll Cover You” “Another Day” and “Without You,” songs which would become anthems for a generation. Don’t be late returning from intermission or you’ll miss “Seasons of Love,” the show’s signature tune, brilliantly performed by the entire cast, with a soaring solo by Alana Cauthen that still sends a chill down your spine.

“Rent” was responsible for bringing in many young theater-goers who had probably never seen live theater before, drawn both by the characters — who were more diverse than Broadway had ever seen before and looked like them – and Larson’s energetic pop-rock score.

As a piece of musical theater, “Rent”  — despite its phenomenal success, including the Pulitzer Prize  — was never a perfect piece.  The tweaking that would have taken place after the off-Broadway run and before Broadway never took place, and the musical became frozen in time.

The question remains what would Larson have become if he had lived?  Probably, he would have become the conscience of a generation, a voice for those who have no real voice, and “Rent” would have been only the beginning.

Whether you’re seeing “Rent” for the first or 15^th time, the song’s the same, because the run ends on Sunday, Sept. 28. When it comes to getting tickets, no day but today.

The North Shore Music Theatre production  of “Rent.” Book, Music and Lyrics by Jonathan Larson.  Directed and choreographed by Marcos Santana. Scenic design by Jeffrey D. Kmiec. Costume design by Rebecca Glick. Lighting design by Jose Santiago. Sound design by Alex Berg. Video design by Beth Truax. Wig and hair design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt. At the North Shore Music Theatre through Sept. 28. Nsmt.org.