CULTURE | Rent is the best musical (ever, IMHO).

Rent isn’t Les Mis. It isn’t Phantom. It isn’t even Cats. There are no falling chandeliers, no helicopters, no big fur suits. There’s barely even a plot.

But Rent has something few other musicals do – Rentheads.

Simply put, they’re fans. Practically devout, and at times fanatical. And I’ve somehow managed to become one.

I admit it, I love Rent. Despite being widely considered the least-classy of the modern day musicals (even surpassing the extravaganza that is Mamma Mia), there’s just something about it that appeals to me – and a few thousand others. Since its debut eight years ago Rent has developed a massive cult following. Rentheads pilot personal websites about the show numbering in the hundreds (if not thousands) and discussion groups about it remain active despite the passing of the original buzz.

RENT: the original soundtrack

Next week will mark my fourth visit to see it (because RENT is the best musical ever, y’all!)

I’ve been to productions in Toronto, Vancouver, and even the U.K. The CD version is one of my standard road trip favourites, and I’ve practically forced my boyfriend to learn the lyrics so we can do duets on the way to Whistler. It sounds crazy, I know. Falling in love with a musical is one thing, but Rent? Why?

Despite a Pulitzer and numerous Tonys, plenty of critics have noted its flaws – the score lacks subtlety. Almost every number is performed at a full-volume fever pitch. It’s crass – I mean, there’s a reason Jean Valjean and Phantom don’t use the F-word. Worst of all, it’s dated.

Still, a decade after its workshop days, Rent remains one of the most original modern musicals around.

For all its flaws, the show is unfailingly unique and its themes have not been repeated. So while there are plenty of reasons to fault it, there are equal, if not more reasons to give it a chance.

Someone once told me that the problem with Rent is that almost every number sounds like a finale. This is true. Almost every piece is resounding and operatic, with large numbers of the cast providing back up and harmony. While intellectually I know this is a problem – good musicals, like good stories, should have a discernable arc – emotionally, originator Jonathan Larson’s refusal to fill the centre of his musical with supposedly appropriate quiet bits is part of the reason I love it.

Finales are bigger and better than all the pieces that precede them. They’re designed to send the show out with a bang. Rent delivers bang after bang throughout the entire performance. It may be juvenile and unsophisticated – like eating birthday cake for breakfast – but it’s also fun.

Rent is hopeful.

Based on Puccini’s opera La Bohème, it is the story of a year in the life of a bunch of starving artist types in New York City’s Alphabet City (also known as the East Village), but unlike it’s predecessor, it is without despair. A number of the show’s characters are afflicted with HIV/AIDS, but Larson, who died tragically the very day the show opened for previews in New York [unrelatedly], portrays these people as joyful, outgoing, and no different than their healthy counterparts. And while this attitude may not seem notable today, in the mid-‘90s, it was practically unheard of.

Rent is dated, for sure. AIDS education has become the public school norm, and the virus has become more treatable through new drug cocktails. As a result, Rent’s originally fresh concept has become culturally stale. Like the movie Philadelphia, it just doesn’t have the resonance it once did, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Unlike so many older musicals, like West Side Story with its racist undertones that appear harsh and politically incorrect in the light of modern day, Rent’s messages remain positive, if a little cheesy.

The world may have changed, but acceptance, open-mindedness, and equal rights are still things to strive for.

And the maintenance of a family – no matter how unconventional – is something plenty of people understand. Generation X may have passed into the ether of middle age, but its seemingly-slackerish attitude toward fighting The Man still has cultural significance.

If nothing else, to see Rent is to see the preservation of a once massively influential generation that has completely faded from pop culture.

Before there was Paris Hilton and reality TV, youth was defined by Nirvana grunge and Reality Bites and in 10 years, that movement has completely disappeared. The complete societal turnaround is enough to give Rent historical gravity.

It is impossible to say how Rent would have fared had Jonathan Larson lived to see its success.

He died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm and dissection, believed to have been caused by undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, before the show’s premiere, and just hours before his death, told a New York Times reporter: “It’s not how many years you live, but how you fulfil the time you spend here. That’s sort of the point of the show.”

A version of “RENT is the best musical ever (according to this Renthead)” was originally published in the Vancouver Sun, August, 2004. The original headline was “What We Love Today: RENT”. See clipping below.

More culture pieces by Jen Selk are here.

Published August, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun.