JONATHAN LARSON'S RENT PLAYS IN (EAST) PEORIA!

A Review of Eastlight Theatre's production of Jonathan Larson's

RENT

by James L. Seay

There is no question about it, Jonathan Larson's musical update of Giacomo Puccini's opera, certainly played in Peoria – well, actually in East Peoria, but close enough for government work. And, speaking of government work, it was produced by the Eastlight Theatre, a unique community theatre supported by a cooperative effort between three governmental entities – the city of East Peoria, the Tri-County Park District and the East Peoria School District, a combination which I wish we could see in many more communities.

It was playwright Billy Aronson who came up with the notion to do a musical update of La Bohème back in 1988. He wanted to create “a musical inspired by Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème, in which the luscious splendor of Puccini's world would be replaced with the coarseness and noise of modern New York.” After contacting Ira Weitzman with his idea in 1989, Aronson teamed up with Larson, at Weitzman's suggestion, to collaborate on the idea. The title was Larson's idea, and the location, wherein the East Village's “Alphabet City” replaced Puccini's Parisian Latin Quarter, was taken from Larson's actual experience (although he had actually lived in New York's So-Ho district) where Larson and his roommates lived a “Bohemian” life style like the characters in the play.

In 1991, Larson asked Aronson if he could use the concept they had worked on and make Rent his own. After a staged reading in 1993, and a three-week run a year later as a studio production, the play premiered off-Broadway on January 25th, 1996. Early that same morning, Jonathan Larson had died from a miss-diagnosed aortic aneurysm, an irony that seemed to be right out of either Rent or La Bohème. Eventually the producers decided to move the play to Broadway where it opened at the Nederlander Theatre on April 29th, 1996.

The plot of Rent pretty much approximates that of La Bohème with few exceptions. One is that the disease of the show is no longer consumption (tuberculosis) as the killer of the 19th Century rebellious youth. It is replaced with AIDS, the curse of their 20th Century counterparts. This works extremely well. The one change which bothers me, however, is Mimi's “out of body”or “near death” experience after she seems to have died. When Mimi (played by Kates Rotroff in the Eastlight production) is brought into the old factory building at 11th Street and Avenue B at the end of Rent, she apparently dies, as does Mimi in the Puccini opera. Roger (played by Adam Sitton in the Eastlight production) sings “Your Eyes” to her as her own eyes close. This is where the musical play (like the Opera) should have ended – but it doesn't! Mimi rises up and tells of being in a marvelous place where she met with the previously deceased character, Angel, the loveable drag queen, and says “He looked good!” Somehow, this just didn't ring true and it sent up all sorts of red flags to my Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Fortunately, the rest of the play is so excellent that this transgression did not spoil it. With a weaker vehicle, it very well could have. Neither Rent nor La Bohème is a story that lends itself well to a Disneyish happy ending.

This problem, of course, has nothing to do with the Eastlight production, which was as close to flawless as any community theatre production that it has been my privilege to audit. I honestly sat spellbound throughout the entire production. Every aspect seemed in tune with every other aspect – the most fantastic set I may have ever seen on the non-professional stage, Mark Baugher's beautiful choreography, Chip Joyce's seamless direction, and a collection of beautiful voices that were truly to die for (or, in Mimi's case, to have an out-of-body near-death experience for).

The blending of the voices totally bewitched me, and I found particularly haunting the duet by Roger (Adam Sitton) and Mimi (Kates Rotroff), “On the Street” and the duet between Tom Collins (Anthony Hendricks) and Angel (Brandon Chandler) at Angel's death scene, “I'll Cover You.” In the final scene of the first act, the company song “La Vie Bohème” (the Bohemian life) gives a nod to Puccini, but it also has a somewhat profound statement which I felt isolated one of the major themes of the play when Benjamin (Mark Baugher) says, “This is Calcutta, not Bohemia. Bohemia is dead.”

Eastlight Theatre has been a new experience for me, both as a critic and as a lover of theatre. After so many summer productions of old chestnuts like Oklahoma, South Pacific, Funny Girl, Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof and bits of fluff such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Suessical the Musical and Disney's High School Musical on Stage, it has done my old (and, believe me, I mean “old”) theatre heart good to see something with the social impact of Rent. As I am perhaps overly fond of saying about shows with hard-hitting social implications, it has the impact of a brick coming through a plate glass window. Rent will be done by the Springfield Theatre Centre during their 2009-10 season and I am looking forward to their interpretation of it. But Eastlight has set a very high bar for any Central Illinois community theatre to clear.

Rent will continue to play at the Byron Moore Auditorium of the East Peoria High School through this weekend, and I urge you to take the time to see it. It is only about seventy miles from Springfield, eighty five from Champaign/Urbana and forty five from Bloomington/Normal. And believe me, it is worth the trip! You can get ticket information by calling 309-699-7469 as well as cast bios and a lot of information on the group by visiting their website, www.EastlightTheatre.com. But don't put it off. There are not all that many performances left. Believe me, you will be as spellbound as I was!