Rent Remixed (London)

Played at the DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE, LONDON
3rd October 2007 - 2nd February 2008

THE ORIGINAL LONDON CAST

Mark - Oliver Thornton
Roger - Luke Evans
Collins - Leon Lopez
Benny - Craig Stein
Joanne - Francesca Jackson
Angel - Jay Webb
Mimi - Siobhan Donaghy
Maureen - Denise Van Outen (After December 22nd - Jessie Wallace)

ENSEMBLE

Ruth Augilera
Lewis Griffiths
CJ Johnson
Antony Luperi
Earl Perkins
Jamie Sampson
Gemma Whitelam
Philippa Stefani
Alexander Forster

MARK COHEN: A struggling documentary filmmaker, the narrator of the show and the person who creates a final movie which details his friends' lives and journeys throughout the story. Ex-boyfriend of Maureen. Roommate of Roger.

ROGER DAVIS: An HIV-infected musician who is recovering from heroin addiction; his girlfriend April killed herself after finding out she and he had HIV; Mark's roommate and Mimi's love interest.

TOM COLLINS: A gay philosophy teacher and anarchist with AIDS; friend and former roommate of Roger, Mark, Benny, and Maureen; Angel's lover.

MIMI MARQUEZ: An HIV-positive exotic dancer and heroin junkie; Roger's love interest who used to be involved with Benny

ANGEL DUMOTT SCHUNARD: A gay drag queen street percussionist musician with AIDS; Collins' lover.

JOANNE JEFFERSON: An Ivy League-educated lawyer; Maureen's lover; lesbian.

MAUREEN JOHNSON: A lesbian performance artist; Joanne's girlfriend; Mark's ex-girlfriend.

BENJAMIN "BENNY" COFFIN III: Landlord of Mark, Roger and Mimi's apartment building; ex-roommate of Mark, Collins, Roger, and Maureen. Now married to Alison Grey of the Westport Greys and thus considered a yuppie sell-out.

Larson's inspiration for Rent's content came from several different sources. Many of the characters and plot elements are drawn directly from Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème, the world premiere of which was in 1896-100 years before Rent's premiere. La bohème was also about the lives of poor young artists. Tuberculosis, the plague of Puccini's opera, is replaced by AIDS in Rent; 1800s Paris is replaced by New York's East Village in the late 1980s. The names and identities of Rent's characters also heavily reflect Puccini's original characters, though they are not all direct adaptations. For example, Joanne in Rent is an amalgamation of both Marcello and Alcindoro in Bohème. Rodolfo became Roger, Musetta became Maureen and Benoit became Benny.

Rent tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent in the gritty background of New York's East Village. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

525,600 minutes
525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
How about love?
Measure in love.
Seasons of love.

525,600 minutes
525,000 journeys to plan.
525,600 minutes
How can you measure the life of a woman or man?

In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned, or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
though the story never ends
let's celebrate, remember a year in the life of friends.
Remember the love!

Remember the love! Measure in love.
Seasons of love!
Seasons of love.

Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the '60s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each others' roles, as they did in Hair. Casting in some musicals is an attempt to represent the community at the subject of the drama, as in Rent and In the Heights. Homosexuality has been explored in such musicals, beginning with Hair, and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles and Falsettos. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism.

Jonathan Larson's musical Rent (based on the opera La Bohème) attempted to increase the popularity of musicals among a younger audience. It features a cast of twentysomethings, and the score is heavily rock-influenced. The musical became a hit, even with its composer dying of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the final dress rehearsal at New York Theatre Workshop, before he could see it reach Broadway. A group of young fans, styled RENTheads, line up at the Nederlander Theatre hours early in hopes of winning the lottery for $20 front row tickets, and some have seen the show more than 50 times.

This highly enjoyable new version of Rent somehow manages to fuse Puccini with Kylie to great effect....Baker may have two drawcards in the leading roles but one of the reasons for the pleasure that this almost three hour musical provides is almost perfect casting of all of the main roles, together with an energetic ensemble who perform well on a rather bland whitewashed stage that does, however, soak up David Howe's rock concert lights, creating a series of memorable images...Her role as Maureen is not that big but Miss van Outen has tremendous stage presence and since she knows how to belt out the blues and seduce an audience will win lots of friends for her performance...The music features many catchy tunes which will undoubtedly mean that passers-by will hear an awful lot of humming and singing just after the final curtain every night...The choreography from Ashley Wallen is also impressive, seemingly owing an awful lot to the rock concert background of the show's director, designer and lighting supremo...Some may have questioned the wisdom of remixing Rent but it is hard to believe that this vibrant but moving evening will not be a long-term sell-out.

When Jonathon Larson conceived his ground-breaking musical Rent, he set out to create a serious piece of musical theatre with a rock score. So director William Baker and musical supervisor Steve Anderson's decision to "remix" what has become a revered rock cult classic musical might appear to some to be an ill-conceived travesty. Or is it, others might argue, anymore of a travesty than was Larson's original idea to re-work Puccini's operatic masterpiece La Boheme as a rock musical?... the strength of the material shines through right from the first few moments as the wonderful ensemble cast chant the haunting lines "Will I Lose My Dignity?" before bursting into the glorious "Seasons Of Love". For at the core of the production is Jonathon Larson's brilliant score - including "One Song Glory", "Another Day", "Santa Fe", "I'll Cover You", "Without You" and "Goodbye Love" - all now sounding in some ways more lush and melodious than ever...Francesca Jackson steals the thunder amongst the female cast. Oozing with sophistication and class as the accomplished attorney, Joanne (Maureen's lover), she delivers her lyrics with dexterity and punch and at times her vocals are astonishing...The HIV positive songwriter, Roger, who lights Mimi's candle in both metaphor and reality, is played by Luke Evans with an immense presence that allows him to move effortlessly back and forth from fragility to anger, from despair to hope. And when he sings he is nothing short of outstanding.

Many diehard "Rent-heads" will no doubt find the whole experience unsatisfying, even distasteful. And it is true that this production is far from perfect - but the original Broadway version is far from perfect. If one approaches this production with an open mind, despite its flaws Rent Remixed is a very enjoyable evening. All true lovers of the art of musical theatre should go to see the show with no pre-conceived hang-ups. After all, as the definitive lines from Larson's lyrics state: "Forget regret or life is yours to miss."

Anyone who knows Rent from its savage parody, Lease, in the film Team America: World Police ("Everyone has Aids!/ Aids! Aids! Aids! / Aids! Aids! Aids! Aids! Aids! Aids!") will know it's a feast for ironists and cynics. When it opened in New York a decade ago, however, the musical drew praise for its portrayal of the city's bohemians, many of them gay and/or HIV-positive. Based on La bohème, the "rock opera" shares Puccini's tragic arc, but it responds to the desolation of drugs and Aids with some high kicks, some vocal belting and a whole lot of life-affirming hand-holding. In short, in the gay old-fashioned way. The director, William Baker - Kylie Minogue's stylist and collaborator - has "remixed" it, so now some characters are British, and songs have been tweaked. The remix also has Denise Van Outen (outstanding) and the former Sugababe Siobhan Donaghy (very good too, if still incapable of smiling). But some leopards can't change their diamanté spots: it's happy, shiny, yet somehow not fresh. Though you can't fault the message or the feeling, there are surely better ways of expressing them today.

They also said this:
"The songs, apart from a few numbers - notably 'Seasons of Love' and 'Take Me or Leave Me' - are forgettable. If Larson intended to present a gritty slice of street life, there's no new evidence of that here. Baker may have toned down the eyes-and-teeth showbiz bravura, but inhabitants of this Alphabet City are hardly slumming it, on a white multi-levelled set by Mark Bailey. Still, Anderson has done a cracking job of funking up Larson's score, replacing overweening guitar rock with pumping gay club anthems and diva pop, flavoured with rippling keyboards and electronica %u2026 Oliver Thornton and Luke Evans bring intensity and a latent homoeroticism to the friendship of the narrator Mark and his roommate Roger. Yet the only touching relationship is that of Leon Lopez's brawny Collins and Jay Webb's adorable and emotionally tough Angel, who succumbs to AIDS, in the form of a throng of S&M vampires, in camp, affecting style. Overall, this is a flawed product stylishly repackaged. Whether it spawns a new generation of 'Renthead' fans remains to be seen. But I suspect Larson wouldn't have been displeased with the makeover."

Magical, poignant songs ...Impressive: Luke Evans as Roger and former Sugababe Siobhan Donaghy as Mimi...The best of Larson's songs, those extraordinary, poignant laments in which young Nineties Americans faced up to the terrible decline and fall of Aids, worked their magic last night, thanks to Steve Anderson's musical rearrangements for a powerful just four-strong orchestra. They keep much of their power, passion and musical glory. I can think of no musical whose lyrics so startle with their youthful despair - "How do you measure your last year on earth" - or songs as desolate as Without You to which Siobhan Donaghy's thin, seductive waif of a Mimi gives lovely voice... Both Miss Donaghy and the cute Evans are vocally impressive.... At least Baker improves upon Larson's original in which the swooning, dying Mimi miraculously recovers consciousness... Enjoy Rent Remixed for its exquisite songs, not its vacuous story