I always thought that "Contact," in Act II of Rent, was just about sex, but it's not quite that simple. I think the point of "Contact" is that sex is not connection. Sex is pleasure, appetite. Connection is more than that. And these people need connection.
I confess that I never really understood why this number was in the show. It's in such a different style from the rest of the score, and the way it was staged in the original production baffled me – it was cool, but what did that have to do with what came before and after it? The number is about sex, I get that... and...?
Now that I've spent some time with it, "Contact" is beginning to make sense to me. It's a wild piece of music, a very sophisticated piece of counterpoint and percussion, more an expressionist collage of words than a conventional theatre lyric, in fact closer to Larson's artistic model, Hair, than anything else in Rent. Words as percussion, as pure sounds, repeated until they divorce from their meaning. The central theme of Rent, as Mark and Roger put it in "What You Own" in Act II, is "connection is an isolating age." The central theme of "Contact" is a lack of connection.
Touch taste
Deep dark kiss
Hot hot hot
Sweat sweet
Wet wet wet
Slap slap red heat
Beg fear fear fear thick
Please don't stop
Please, please don't
Red, red red, red red,
Red stop, stop,
Red red red red red red stop, stop,
Stop don't
Red red red red red red please, please, please
Please please please please
Harder wetter
You whore!
You bastard!
You cannibal!
You animal!
Fluid, no
Fluid, no
Contact, yes
No contact
Fire fire
Burn burn yes
Fluid, no fluid, no
Fluid, no fluid, no
Contact, yes contact, yes
No contact no contact
Fire fire fire fire
Burn burn burn burn yes yes
Sticky licky trickle tickle
Steamy creamy
Stroking soaking
No latex rubber rubber
Fire latex rubber
Latex bummer lover bummer
Um
Wait
Slipped
Shit
Ow!
Where'd it go?
Safe
Damn
I think I missed
Don't get pissed
It was bad for me – was it bad for you?
It's a song from the Id. The stand-out lines for me are:
Contact, yes contact, yes
No contact no contact
These characters crave connection, and all they get is contact. Sex isn't love. It's not even connection. These young people are growing up, and pure carnality isn't enough anymore. What was once satisfying has become underwhelming, insufficient, ruined both by the horrors of AIDS and by a growing desire – need? – for real human connection.
The lyric is so well-crafted. It's starts out bordering on soft porn, but then something goes wrong ("Red red red red red red stop, stop, stop"). Emotions get in the way ("You whore!"), and the necessary caution in the age of AIDS ("Fluid, no fluid, no"), the age of contact without actual contact, gets in the way. How can you connect in an age when two bodies can't even touch without latex? It's another example of the "virtual reality" that Collins is battling. As the song spins out of control, the characters try to salvage the passion, but it's no use. Sex is difficult now, careful, a negotiation. And it's not fun anymore. Mere contact isn't enough. They need more. And the whole things runs out of steam.
Larson didn't give us a whole lot specific to go on here. His stage direction reads:
There are two main groups: As the music begins, a group of dancers start a sensual life-and-death dance, while a group of actors gather around a table centerstage to speak words of
passion, which punctuates the dancing. Eventually the actors converge on the table and
cover themselves with a white sheet. Angel emerges upstage of the sheeted group.
He clearly wanted this moment to function in a more abstract, expressionistic way, more purely emotional, more primal, more stream-of-consciousness, less rational, less linear, an experience very much like being in the throes of sexual passion. But by the end, instead of a climax, the experience gets short-circuited. These people have lost their way.
In New Line's staging, we've shifted slightly a couple things in Act II (not the words or music, just the action), so that in our Rent, "Contact" is also about the fact that Collins and Angel did have that deeper connection, that for them sex was connection.
The most important thing for me was that this number not be vulgar. Don't get me wrong – I'm a big fan of vulgar – but that's not what this is about. Sex really isn't the point here.
We're continually finding as we work that Rent is deeper, more human, more complex than any of us ever understood. Even though we've all known the show by heart for years, we're allowing ourselves to be open to finding new meaning, new moments, new surprises, with nothing to guide us but the exceptional text.
I don't think Rent's depth is always plumbed, but it will be on our stage. I couldn't be prouder of our cast or the work they're doing.
My favorite part of the process is once we get the show blocked and start running it, and I get to see everything we've created, always better, cooler, more intense, more surprising, more intricate, more beautiful than I had imagined.
This is the time when I can really step back and play audience. I'm really good at feeling the "wrong" moments. I may not immediately know what's wrong, but I can tell if it doesn't feel right. I then analyze the moment and see what set off my alarm. It's usually a lapse in authenticity, an actor anticipating a surprise, a false reaction, an easy choice, an unmotivated cross. Being able to find those little problems and fix them is part of what makes complex shows work well.
I often notice during this part of the process small things in the text that I just passed over before. If something doesn't make complete sense to me, and the actor's performance isn't helping, I'll ask them – Why do you say that? What does that mean? Sometimes the actor has thought about it and has a good solid understanding of it. Sometimes the actor has done what I've done, passing over it to focus on the bigger, more important stuff.
The other night, Marshall came over to me and asked me why Collins was fired from MIT. First, I love that that mattered to him as an actor, having that piece of Collins' reality. But also, I had an impression of why Collins was fired, but I wasn't sure if it was just my assumption or if it was in the text. So we found it –
They expelled me for my theory of actual reality,
Which I'll soon impart
To the couch potatoes at New York University.
It's a bit vague, but it seems Collins was fired for teaching radical, subversive politics in the classroom. The joke for New Yorkers in the audience is that Collins is immediately hired by über-liberal New York University. That tells us more than I had thought about before. Collins is intensely political.
Last night, having dinner after a really great rehearsal, I asked Anna (Mimi) why she says a particular line when they revive her late in the show: "A leap of moooo..." Now, I know it's a reference back to Maureen's performance art piece. But why "a leap of moo"? Is Mimi only half-conscious? Is she just babbling? Even so, what's the point? I don't think it's just random – Larson didn't do that in this show.
So we talked about "Over the Moon."
We talked about the nursery rhyme it's based on, "Hey Diddle, Diddle"
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon.
The little Dog laughed,
To see such sport,
[originally, "To see such craft"]
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.
We wondered if the nursery rhyme originally had some political context (a lot of them did) that Larson was referencing. Searching the internet today, it seems no one knows for sure the origins of this nursery rhyme. But Maureen has certainly made it a political statement about fighting the power structure.
Then a little bulldog entered. His name, we have learned, was Benny. And although he once had principles, he abandoned them to live as a lap dog to a wealthy daughter of the revolution. "That's bull," he said. "Ever since the cat took up the fiddle, that cow's been jumpy. And the dish and spoon were evicted from the table and eloped. She's had trouble with her milk and that moon ever since. Maybe it's a female thing. Cause who'd want to leave Cyberland anyway? ... Walls ain't so bad. The dish and spoon for instance – they were down on their luck – knocked on my doghouse door.”
I said "Not in my backyard, utensils! Go back to China."
"The only way out is up," Elsie whispered. "A leap of faith. Still thirsty?" Parched. "Have some milk." I lowered myself beneath her swollen udder and sucked the sweetest milk I'd ever tasted. “Climb on board,” she said. As a harvest moon rose over Cyberland, we reared back and sprang into a gallop, leaping out of orbit!
I awoke singing, “Only thing to do is jump over the moon.”
So jumping over the moon -- taking that "leap of faith" – is how to escape from the oppression (the "walls") of enforced social conformity and mainstream morality.
And then, happily baked after a long day's night, it hit me.
Maybe mooing is fighting back, taking action, refusing to be a victim.
That's the whole point of Maureen's piece – art as political activism. Maureen is protesting this lot (her performance space) being redeveloped, and how does she do it? "Moo with me!" She gets the crowd to moo. Mooing becomes an act of civil obedience. Remember what Joanne tells the gang at the Life Cafe? "The cops are sweeping the lot, but no one's leaving. They're just sitting there mooing!"
Mooing is fighting back.
And at the end of the show Mimi has to fight back on an existential level. She has to fight to keep existing. The more I think about it, the more I think the "moooo" is the sound of the exertion of Mimi fighting her way back, almost like a magic incantation or something...
Mooing is living. Surviving.
Mimi takes a leap of "moo." Instead of being passive, instead of letting life happen to her, she takes control of her destiny. She takes responsibility for her life. And with that act, she learns something important and her hero myth story can end. And maybe we've learned something too.
It's a good article and I agree with most of it. The point is that "Why" is the wrong question, but people are constantly asking it. People want to know why a loved one gets sick or dies, why things go wrong, why problems persist. It's the whole point of Mark's art song "Halloween" in Rent.
But that's a dangerous question to ask, because that's the kind of question that led humans to create gods and religion.
As Bill Finn's 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee tells us, "Life is random and unfair. Life is pandemonium." (And Finn should know, after collapsing from an arteriovenous malformation in his brain, the day after winning a Tony for Falsettos.) Of course, if you don't believe in a god, then this statement is perfectly logical. If life is random, it can't be "fair," right? But that's not necessarily a bad thing – to me, it's comforting, free of judgment, free of mythology, free of expectations. Bad things happen sometimes because we live in a massive, complex world with billions of other people, not because we're "good" or "bad" or because we've "sinned" or "repented."
And hurricanes aren't caused by gay marriage.
As I was commenting on Luke's post, I realized suddenly that's what I love most about Rent, and I think it's why Rent is so universally loved: Larson never judges these people. (Which is why, I think, Rent is so free of religion, which is built on lots of judgment.) Our heroes don't have AIDS because they're bad people or they've enraged God to the point where he smote them with the HIV virus. They have AIDS because there's an epidemic and lots of people in their community are getting AIDS.
Because life is random and unfair.
One of the central points of the story is that judgment of others is unhealthy. Rent is about a community of misfits, but as in Cry-Baby, here the real misfits are the outside world, the adults, the police, the university, the parents, because they judge. It reminds me of a lyric from Hands on a Hardbody: "Leave the judging to the Judge who'll judge us all on Judgment Day." (I love Amanda Green's writing!) It's that judgment from the outside world that has built this insular community, that has drawn these people together, that prompts Mark to toast, "To being an Us for once, instead of Them."
Jonathan Larson compels his audience to accept, even embrace, all these societal misfits, to set aside judgment, to see their humanity. For those in the audience who don't know any transgendered people, Angel may seem a little scary to them at first (some people are terrified of blurring the gender lines), but by the end of Act I, the whole audience wants to be Angel's best friend. And then there's the stripper, the addicts, the homeless people, the squatters, the artists... but when they're all singing "La Vie Boheme," it's hard to be scared of them.
When I first saw Bat Boy, I was stunned at how powerfully emotional the ending was, how deeply the show had touched me – it's so wacky, so outrageous, so full of Brechtian "alienation," but the writers still made me care about Edgar. Likewise in Rent, the most ordinary, middle-of-the-road Americans find themselves crying before the show is over, because they'll feel that deeply for these characters.
Because Larson tricks them into forgetting their usual prejudices and biases. He makes them forget to judge.
When the cast sings, "There's only us. There's only this," I can't help but think, This is enough. I have an artistic family much like the friends in Rent, and having all those people in my life, being able to make really great art with them, getting to watch them create, sharing our work with the world – that's more than enough for me. It would be greedy to want more. I don't need promises of eternal bliss or threats of eternal damnation to make me want to live a good life and make a good world, here and now.
I'll always remember one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Doherty, 8th grade earth science. Every once in a while, she'd have to leave the room for some reason, and she'd always say to us, "While I'm gone, don't behave because you might get caught misbehaving; behave because that's what you're supposed to do in my classroom." And she'd leave to go to the principal's office or something, and everyone would behave. Always.
Because instead of threats, which often seem to be such a central part of religion and education, she just assumed we'd be decent, and so we were.
Angel is very Zen-like, and so is Luke. Just as I have, they've both been through dark times, and came through those times with newfound wisdom. Just like a hero myth story! I'll admit that part of my journey to semi-Zen-like-ness was aided and abetted by my fictional doppelgänger, Johnny Appleweed. Using pot (at least for me) really does allow you to see more clearly what matters and what doesn't, what's of value and what's bullshit.
And sometimes it makes you ask your set designer for a twelve-foot-wide, raked moon platform.
In my 2006 musical Johnny Appleweed, we introduced these three Stoners, who perform a group monologue that leads up to the song, "The Scheme of Things":
We stoners experience the world in a way the uninitiated will never even imagine. Certain things just don’t matter anymore, money, career, gadgets, all the accoutrements of status and rabid patriotism, and only when you’re straight again, do you realize that those things didn't matter when you were baked because they really shouldn't matter.
The human brain processes four hundred billion pieces of information per second, but we’re only aware of two thousand of them. Marijuana dials down that editing system and opens up the Floodgates of the Mind – like a circle in a spiral, like a meal within a meal.
So now you have your pick of all those amazing, interesting little pieces of information, all those bits and bites that usually get sorted out without our knowing it. Now the things that are supposed to be important get lost in a sea of everything-ness, no longer gripping our reality quite so tightly, now allowing new things to come swimming along, relegating the “important”
things to a small swirling eddy of neuroses just over the horizon out of sight, out of mind.
In short, the holy bud sweeps away from your brain all the bullshit that keeps you from being the happy, thoughtful, engaged person you really are, a fully realized being like Yoda or Gary Busey.
And the trivia washes back to shore…
I think my lyric gets at some of what I'm talking about here, accepting life as it is (also the central theme of Kander & Ebb's Zorba), not struggling against it, not being swept up in the trivial bullshit of life that can take you to a dark place. Whether or not you need the holy bud to accomplish that...
Your boss is mad
‘Cause your drawer is short.
The customers think shopping
Is a contact sport.
Pity the customers,
Pity your boss.
So what if you’re fired?
It’s really his loss.
It doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.
And you don’t have to answer when the telephone rings.
What really matters?
What really counts?
A couch, snacks,
And at least half an ounce.
We are the stoners;
This is our creed.
We live on only
Just what we need.
We don’t need laptops,
Or cell phones too.
And what good does an i-Pod
In your ear really do?
Disconnectedness.
Inhumane.
You’re all self-inflicting
Your psychic pain.
The part that makes us human disappears each day,
And does it really matter if your therapist is gay?
What really matters?
What really counts?
It’s joy, and friends,
And at least half an ounce.
Look at the forest,
Not at the trees.
This is our stoner creed,
If you please.
We know what you've read,
That stoners sit at home and might as well be dead.
But we’re home pondering the questions of the universe,
While you’re out shopping instead.
And please remember,
Don’t call us slackers –
That really hurts.
You see, your consciousness is limited
By what you know;
But find the key,
You’ll see
You’re just an embryo.
To see what’s so important,
To see what’s really not,
Load a bowl and smoke all you've got.
Take it from the stoners,
There is poetry in your pot.
Writing Johnny Appleweed was partly an exercise for me in figuring out all the stuff I'm talking about here. I live a fairly unconventional life, and I have, ever since college. That brings with it a shit-ton of judgment from the Normal World. It was hard to learn how not to be beaten up by that, and I had to fuck up a lot of things on my way to learning that. Appleweed was my way of sharing the things I came to understand. There is lots of truth in our world that goes unnoticed or not understood. Our job as artists, as storytellers, is to point that truth out, in as compelling a way as we can.
And I think Rent was the same for Jonathan Larson. It was the AIDS pandemic that brought him the profound wisdom he put into his masterpiece. There is great truth in his story. That's why we write, to share what we've figured out about the world and ourselves. When I experience something wonderful, my first inclination is to share that experience (god bless Facebook), and I have no doubt that inclination is part of why I've spent my life telling stories.
As actor Ben Kingsley said, "The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important to appreciate that."
And maybe the reason Rent hit me so powerfully, so personally, is that I'm a misfit too. I'm not as fucked up or as noble as the characters in Rent, but I'm on that same journey. We all are. And Larson has a lot to share with us, still, through his story. He's gone, but he left us Rent.
There are some shows that bring with them profound responsibility, shows like Hair and Next to Normal. It's the same with Rent. This isn't just entertainment. This isn't about diversion or escape. Rent is about connection. That's why it's both universal and timeless. We will always need this story.
As I've written about here before, for a long time, I didn't want to work on Rent. I was convinced that any changes to Michael Greif's original conception and staging would be blasphemous. But then Greif himself remounted the show in 2011, and blasphemed himself by taking an entirely different approach to the show's conception and staging.
After I saw the 2011 revival of Rent, I was reminded of an interview with Jerry Zaks about his masterful 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls. He said his whole team agreed from the beginning that they would forget that Guys and Dolls was a classic, arguably a masterpiece of musical comedy. Instead, they treated it as if it were a new piece that had been sent to them for production. Every choice was wide open. The only blueprint was the words and music. And the results were amazing, as different from the original as the two Rents were, but like the Rents, equally brilliant.
The reverse is also true, why most productions of Show Boat and anything by Rodgers & Hammerstein usually suck. People try to direct and design and act in "classics" instead of stories. They over-venerate the material. Usually (though not always), it takes a foreign director to make those shows work again, someone who's not crippled by that veneration. It's the same reason so many productions of Shakespeare suck. They think they're doing "masterpieces" instead of sex comedies and thrillers.
I knew that was the key with Rent. I could not direct a Pulitzer Prize winning theatre piece by a dead, young genius. It would overpower me. I had to come at the show without reverence. That's what had held me back all those years, not wanting to work on this show, not wanting to tamper with the perfection of the original. I had to come at this show like it's a brand new piece I've found, that no one else has ever produced before.
Because I love Rent so deeply and because that first experience seeing the original cast on Broadway was so artistically life-altering for me, I assumed that even with my new, Zen-like approach to the show, some moments would end up looking like the original, despite my intentions. In fact, I even planned originally to stage "Seasons of Love" exactly like Michael Greif did in the original production, as a sort of tribute, in that famous line across the front of the stage. But now that we're done blocking the show, I don't think there's a single moment that looks like the original. I decided Greif's "Seasons of Love" line didn't fit the rest of our show, as masterful and meaningful as it was in its original context. So ours will be different.
Ultimately, I found a clear path right through this story, but it wasn't the same path Michael Greif took.
So how will New Line's Rent be different, I hear you ask? In a lot of small, tiny ways, just because we have a lot of really interesting, playful actors who are already finding so many cool little details that define their characters. I see relationships developing among the lovers, and they're all slightly different from what we've seen before. We intentionally departed from the usual types with many of the characters, both in look and in personality.
Marshall is giving us a much funnier, more vulnerable Tom Collins. Luke's Angel is less Puck and more stylish zen master. Shawn's Benny is much less of an asshole, and instead just a guy who wants different things than his friends – which I find a lot more compelling.
Sarah's giving us a much funnier – and weirdly charming – Maureen. In a way, this Maureen is closer to the Drapes in Cry-Baby than to other Maureens I've seen. This Maureen is not mean, just fully armored emotionally (which also means selfish), and prepared to return fire if she's attacked. There's real damage there, a base assumption that the world will shit on her unless she's got her fists up. Like Larry and Joanne in Company, here in our Rent, Joanne is the only one who can see the real, vulnerable Maureen inside the cocky badass.
And Joanne and Mark have become buddies as we've staged the show, to Maureen's great displeasure. Which I love.
Cody's Joanne may be closest to the original, among our leads, but Cody's given Joanne such heart and some steel balls when she stands up to Maureen. Their confrontations work so well because both characters are such strong women -- without being bitches. Cody and Sarah have also really found Maureen and Joanne's love later in the show, which is very cool.
Evan's Roger is less sure of himself, more vulnerable, more fragile. Anna's Mimi has much more insecurity and damage underneath the bravada and aggressiveness. And Jeremy brings to Mark a kind of detached amusement that's really fun in Act I, and then in Act II, it fades as everything turns to shit and reveals the vulnerable kid inside, the kid who's been hiding behind his camera. Even this early in rehearsals, Jeremy's found a really subtle, interesting take on Mark. I don't know if it just happened by instinct or he's been working on it, but it doesn't matter to me.
There will be more concrete ways our Rent is different – different acting choices, different blocking, different scenic, lighting, and costume designs. The giant, raked moon platform in the middle of our set forced us into some really different choices. But some differences seemed obvious. Instead of Mimi starting "Out Tonight" really far away from the audience, in our production, she'll be inches from the front row. Our "Contact" is very different, more subtle, less aggressive, more of a link tonally between "Without You" and the reprise of "I'll Cover You." The cops in Act I will be in the Fourth Wall (i.e., imaginary), which I think makes them even more of a looming presence. By necessity (but now that we've seen this, we love it), Benny's investor at the Life Cafe is Joanne's father instead of Benny's father-in-law. We had to have the same actor play both roles because of our cast size, and as we were struggling with how to distinguish the two men, it occurred to me that maybe we don't have to. Having Mr. Jefferson at the table has created some wonderful, funny, uncomfortable moments between him and Joanne (we decided he's never met Maureen before this).
And there will also be some abstract differences – tone, energy, etc. Rent is a hybrid of rock concert and theatre. I think the original production leaned more toward the rock concert, and we're leaning more toward the storytelling.
I don't think die-hard Rent fans will mind these differences. We're not changing music or lyrics. In fact, in some cases, we're singing closer to what Larson wrote than the original cast did. Hopefully, our show will be as exciting for Rent fans as it was for me seeing that completely reconceived 2011 revival. I cannot wait to share this wonderful show!
Our ticket pre-sale is insane, by far the biggest we've ever had. Get your tickets now...!
Right after college, I had a ready-made job (almost) waiting for me. And like Mark does late in Rent, I pulled the plug on it before I even started.
I had been a music major at Harvard and had written five musicals by that point, all produced here or in Boston. My junior high drama teacher's husband worked at Maritz, and he got me a job interview with their Corporate Theatre department.
I remember going for the interview, taking a tour of the department, meeting everybody who worked there. On one level, it was pretty cool. They essentially wrote one-act musicals for corporate conventions, shareholder meetings, product launches, trade shows, etc., often starring people like Liza Minnelli and David Copperfield. Everybody was very cool and the atmosphere was very laid-back. They sent me home with three past scripts to look at, to understand the form, the house style, etc. And then the next time one of these came up, they'd ask me to write a script and lyrics to several songs on spec. If they liked my work, they'd keep hiring me, and after a few projects, they'd bring me on staff. The money was great.
So I went home and read these scripts. And I was horrified. These were musicals about how much Chrysler loves its employees, or how exciting the new line of Ford trucks is. (It was something I would later learn is called an "industrial musical.") I don't remember many specifics; my mind has blocked it all out. I finished reading the scripts and felt so depressed. That's not what I wanted to do. Not even close. I didn't want to write songs about products or employees. I didn't want to write someone else's ideas. But it would be good pay, and I'd be writing musicals for a living, right? Sort of...?
Just a few days later, the call came. They had a new project and they wanted me to come out, get the details, talk through the basics, etc.
I told them I was busy.
They never called again.
Which I expected.
My mother was furious. And I felt like I had dodged a bullet. I've got nothing against the people who write stuff like that. I'm sure they do it very well. But even then, several years before the birth of New Line, I knew how wrong that was for me. Like gravy on ice cream wrong.
And last night, watching Act II of Rent, I realized how close my experience was to Mark's experience with Alexi Darling and Buzzline. I wonder how many people watching Rent think Mark's an idiot for turning that opportunity down. I wonder how many people have been in a situation like that...?
I think Mark just saved his own life.
And I think all that's connected to Mark's amazing art song "Halloween," which has also always resonated so strongly with me, partly because it's just so beautiful and the lyric is so simple and insightful; and partly because I really felt like that in my 20s, back before I realized that it's okay not to know where your road is leading. You don't have to know. You don't have to have a plan. You don't have to choose money over happiness. You can just stay on your road and see where it takes you. That's what I did. Asking why shit happens won't keep shit from happening. I've always identified most strongly with Mark, but I never really thought about exactly why that was until now.
I'd love to check in with Mark today, twenty years after Rent, and see if he's still being pure to his art. I am. Maybe it's just my own bias, but I bet Mark does stay pure. I don't think money matters all that much to him, but his work really seems to.
It's never occurred to me before to think about where those characters would be today. Hopefully, Collins, Roger, and Mimi are still alive. If Mimi can kick her habit, she and Roger might still be together, but I wouldn't put money on it. Did Maureen ever grow up? Did she and Joanne stay together? What would a 45-year-old Maureen be like? How many in the support group would still be with us? Would Benny still be with Muffy... sorry, Alison...?
Just a peek into the things that swim around in my head while I'm working on a show...
Me and Mark. Poor but pure.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
P. S. There's a new book about industrial musicals called Everything's Coming Up Profits: the Golden Age of Industrial Musicals, co-authored by Steve Young, a guy who writes for Letterman. About ten years ago, I found an article he had written about this sub-genre, and I contacted him to ask him more details. I was writing my history book at the time, and I wanted to include a section on these shows, but ultimately I didn't have the room. (My first draft was almost twice my allotted length.) Still, Steve sent me ten CDs full of songs from these shows. Apparently, in the 50s and 60s, not only did they write and produce these shows, they also recorded cast albums that everyone got to take home with them. Which are all now collector's items, of course.
Somebody taught me long ago that sometimes the protagonist isn't the character you think it is. It wasn't till after the first reading that I figured out the title character in Johnny Appleweed wasn't the protagonist. And I was writing the damn show.
But there are ways to figure it out, and if you're telling a story, it's important to know. If the storyteller doesn't know, the audience sure as hell isn't gonna know. There are some easy tells. In any good story, the protagonist changes over the course of the story, and he always learns something. Often, though not always, the hero is the first person you meet and the last you hear from.
More than anyone else, Rent is Roger's story. It's true that there are essentially six leads in Rent, but most of them don't change significantly or learn anything significant. Roger and Mimi do, and Mark and Maureen, to a lesser degree. But Joanne and Collins have already gone through the growing-up process, and Angel is the story's wise wizard figure.
Rent is Roger's hero myth. It's easy to get swept up in the joy and rowdiness of this show, the rich musical landscape, the quirky characters, and to miss the skillful, carefully wrought character arc that Larson constructed for Roger. Remember, Rent went through massive rewrites over several years. Though roughness is to some extent Rent's unique style, Larson did a lot of work on the show and put a great deal of time and thought into its construction. (In one early version, the show began with the funeral and then flashed back...)
Once you look closely at Roger's arc, you can see how the whole show is built on that structure.
Roger is in enormous pain when we first meet him. He's been through a terrible tragedy – his girlfriend April gave him AIDS, then killed herself, just six months ago – and as many people do in horrific situations, he shuts down his feelings. He becomes an emotional zombie. He looks like a person on the outside, but he's dead inside. He's learned to function, and how to fake a smile. But he has cut himself off from life. He hasn't seen anyone but Mark in a really long time.
And he's just six months clean from his own heroin addiction. You don't get "cured" of heroin addiction. It's like alcoholism; it's with you for life. You just learn to control it. Maybe.
From the first moments of the show, we're introduced to Roger's "magic amulet" (like the ruby slippers and Luke's light saber), his Fender guitar. It's the only part of him not dead. It's the artist part of him that's hanging on. As long as he has the guitar, as long as his "one great song" isn't finished, he has a reason to get up tomorrow. Roger is unable to finish his song because he's emotionally crippled, but also because finishing his "one great song" would mean he could die. And deep down, that's not really what he wants.
He wants to live again. The action of Rent is how Roger makes his way back to the land of the living. It's about how Roger learns to be one of those "people living with, living with, living with, living with, not dying from disease."
Angel and Collins provide the "call to adventure" that begins every hero myth. Angel is Roger's wise wizard, his Glinda the Good Witch. And his faithful companions on his journey are his community. More than any other modern piece of musical theatre, in Rent, the community is a character – another way in which Larson followed the Rodgers & Hammerstein model. If Roger can just get out into the community, he will find again what was taken from him: real human connection.
Our reluctant hero resists that call at first, but then he gets a second call to adventure, this time a call to emotional (okay, and sexual and chemical) adventure, when Mimi barges into the loft. Roger resists again. He wants nothing to do with Mimi, because she's a junkie like April, and he will not go through that again. He must protect himself, his heart, his broken soul. Just as he protects himself from his addiction. After Mimi leaves, Roger realizes he likes her. But what does that mean to an emotional zombie?
Might it mean that he's not a zombie after all?
He finally answers Angel's call to adventure, inviting Mimi along. And only then, when he risks, when he opens himself to the adventure, does something of value come back to him. Connection. And notice that our hero brings his magic amulet with him everywhere, to the flea market, to Maureen's performance, to the Life Cafe.
Roger and Mimi's duet "I Should Tell You" is the show's "obligatory moment," the moments toward which everything before it has led, and from which everything after it results. Take out that moment and the whole story collapses. Roger finally pries open the door to his heart, finally takes that brave step... and finds out Mimi also has AIDS. Just like April. Just like him. Part of him is terrified that he's finally letting himself feel again, and that it's going to be exactly like the last time. Pain, pain, and nothing but pain. He knows it'll end the same way. He can't do that. He can't bear that kind of pain again. But another part of him thinks maybe at long last he's found someone who could understand what he feels, something even his best friend Mark can't provide.
There's such weight, such deep despair, such understanding when Roger finds out Mimi has AIDS and all he can say is, "Mimi..." He can't believe it. Once again, he falls for someone who's a junkie and who has AIDS, and once again, he knows, she'll die, leaving him alone again. And he knows he won't survive that. And yet who could better understand what he's been going through?
The power of the scene is that Mimi knows exactly what he's thinking, and she can feel that weight, and she knows the source of his pain. And she knows they could ease each other's pain. If only.
And then he says Fuck it and he chooses. ("Here goes...") The end of Act I of Rent feels a little like the end of Act II of Next to Normal. Guardedly semi-optimistic. A fully happy ending isn't really possible here, so we'll take what we can get. Yes, there will be pain. As Next to Normal tells us, "It's the price we pay to feel." And as the act ends, Roger and Mimi join the others in celebrating life at the Life Cafe.
End of Act I...
Unlike most stories, a big part of Roger's hero's journey is skipped, as we race through most of the year in Act II. We're left to fill in those blanks, assume a progression (and disintegration) of Roger and Mimi's relationship, but Larson does a great job of connecting all the dots for us.
Roger's real moment of self-discovery comes in the double interior monologue he shares with Mark, "What You Own" in Act II, and in their fight leading up to it. In each hero myth, the hero has to gain some new wisdom from the trials he's been through and he must return to his village to share his new wisdom. But first he has to hit rock bottom. Everything that Roger needed is being taken away. In the song-scene "Goodbye, Love," Roger and Mark have a real fight, and in pointing out each other's flaws and frauds, they each gain some self-awareness. It takes a fight for them to finally say all this, to finally open up.
They sing, in "What You Own":
So I own not a notion.
I escape and ape content.
I don't own emotion – I rent.
What was it about that night?
Connection – in an isolating age.
For once the shadows gave way to light,
For once I didn't disengage.
Dying in America
At the end of the millennium.
We're dying in America
To come into our own.
But when you're dying in America
At the end of the millennium,
You're not alone.
I'm not alone.
Or as Sondheim would put it, "No one is alone." Mark and Roger are coming to realize that we all go through trials. We all suffer. We all grieve. And we all know we're not alone. Notice the shift from "living in America" earlier in the song, to "dying in America," to "dying... to come into our own." It's the hero's progression from mere existence, to challenge and danger, to finding your own place in the world.
But Roger has not finished his journey. He has not yet become a man. If he doesn't own his emotion, how can he write a love song?
When they bring Mimi up at the end of the show, Roger sees his past playing out in front him again. It's all happening exactly as before. And then he makes a different choice. Instead of giving in to the grief, as he did with April, here he fights it. He rises up to slay the dragon. Roger's song – or more accurately, the genuine love that his song expresses – is the kiss the Prince gives the Disney Princess that saves her life. He hasn't been able to write the song before now, because he wasn't yet capable of mature love. Now he is. He's growing up.
Now Roger is no longer passive. He has chosen to be active. He has chosen to act to save another. He has become heroic... in a small, urban, Alphabet-City, kind of way. He has grown up, and now he can love someone fully.
But like Matt in The Fantasticks, Roger first had to get beat up by the world.
Larson's decision to give Roger such a heavy backstory was one of his most important choices. The existence of April in the story changes it, and elevates it well beyond both the maudlin, emotional pornography of the opera and the subversive but shallow comedy of the novel on which the musical and the opera are based. April gives Roger weight. In the opera, Rodolfo seeks romance; in the novel, Rudolphe seeks sex.
Roger seeks connection.
At the beginning of the show, Roger's song had to be written before he dies. It's connected with ending. At the end of the show, his new song has to be written to express real love. Now it's connected to beginning. All through the show, as a running joke, Roger keeps trying to write this song, but it always ends up sounding like "Musetta's Waltz" from La Bohème. (How meta of you, Jonathan!) Now that Roger has grown up emotionally – or at least, is growing up – now he can integrate his obstacle into his journey, and now a quote from "Musetta's Waltz" shows up as an integrated instrumental break in the middle of his love song, "Your Eyes." Instead of being stymied by it, he has conquered it.
Also notice that Roger's first big song, "One Song Glory" is all about Roger. He even refers to himself in the song, in the third person. This is a shallow sentiment. He wants glory. He thinks he's capable of "truth like a blazing fire." Not yet he isn't. But by the end of the show, he's grown up and his last big song, "Your Eyes," is all about Mimi. It's about connection.
Ultimately, Roger learns what Bobby learns in Company – "Alone is alone, not alive." Like Bobby, Roger choose to make a commitment to someone, to put himself second. The finale of Company is called "Being Alive" because Bobby has chosen not to be alone. The goal isn't to find the perfect person. The goal isn't to get married. The goal is to be alive.
At the end of Rent, Roger choose to be alive. He takes all that he's learned on his journey and he chooses connection. It's not a Happily Ever After, because in real life there's always a next chapter... until there isn't. But it is a resolution.
Larson took some of his structure from the opera, and took some details and the subversive, comic tone from the novel. But he also departed from both sources significantly. It's such a fascinating, complex character arc Larson created for us, and it's fun watching Evan build Roger.
We're almost done blocking. Then we run, run, run...
I knew before I even started, that staging Rent's Act I finale, "Le Vie Bohème," was going to be hard. It's not just a song. There's so much going on in there. And it's really long. All the subtle little character and relationship moments have to be given some room to breathe, yet it has to keep up that manic energy, and it has to somehow build for almost ten minutes.
If it doesn't have structure, if it doesn't build, if it doesn't have it's own beginning, middle, climax, and finish, if it doesn't operate like its own one-act play, it won't work as well dramatically as Jonathan Larson intended. This song takes us out to intermission and has to leave us wanting to know more.
One thing I knew, I didn't want to recreate the original choreography, as much as I love it.
So I called my co-director, Dowdy, and I told him I needed him to come over one night and just talk through and work through this song with me. He was happy to help. And he's really good at problem-solving.
One challenge (of my own making, I admit it) right off the bat, is our set. I asked for a giant, twelve-foot diameter, raked platform, painted like the moon, and god bless Rob, he's delivered. This platform is used a few different ways in the show, but here it transitions from Maureen's stage in the empty lot into the table at the Life Cafe. Almost all productions of Rent reproduce that original long table, with all the actors on one side of the table, facing the audience. Not this time. And that presents a challenge.
But as I"ve thought about it, there's also a real, unexpected advantage in this challenge. Rather than Doing a Number for the audience at the end of the act, this time, the audience will be eavesdroppers. They'll be peeking in at a group of friends celebrating the performance, their lives, each other, their community. Almost like we're sitting at the next table over. It will change the nature of the song. It will become less presentational.
And there's the built-in challenge that the song begs for choreography, but everyone's sitting down at a table. My first decision was that the Millerography (that's what we call it when I stage a number instead of Robin) would start with a version of the vocabulary Tommy Tune invented for The Will Rogers Follies. We won't recreate his choreography, but we will use the building blocks he invented. (We did the same thing with "The Ballad of Guiteau" in Assassins.)
From there, I knew the trick would be to start with very minimal movement, and end with complete chaos on stage. And we'd have to build that structure that takes us on that journey. I started putting together a movement vocabulary for the number, various things we could do at the table, with the table, with the chairs. Many of these moves made it into the final product, but some didn't.
Also, before we could really get to work, we had to make a couple dramatic decisions. We have a slightly smaller cast than on or off Broadway, so that changes some things. First, Benny's investor who's with him at the Life Cafe is usually his father-in-law, Mr. Grey. But we had cast the same actor as both Joanne's father, Mr. Jefferson, and as Mr. Grey. As I started to think about how to distinguish the two visually for the audience, it occurred to me that there's no reason Mr. Jefferson couldn't be one of Benny's investors. We know Joanne's family is fairly well-off.
I asked Dowdy and Rob (the actor) what they thought. We talked through the entire scene. If that's Mr. Jefferson, what does he think about seeing his daughter here – and seeing her kiss and fool around with Maureen? How does that alter his line readings? What does Joanne think about it? Ultimately, we decided it really could make sense, maybe even be more interesting (what are the odds Benny would choose his friend Mark's ex-girlfriend's girlfriend's father as an investor?), and it really didn't change anything else. (It required us to change one word in Benny's phone call during "Christmas Bells.")
It also gives Mr. Jefferson a lot more to play. We're pretty sure he's knows about Maureen, since he makes sure to tell Joanne to come to the confirmation hearing alone and not to dress like a lesbian. But maybe the Jeffersons have never met Maureen. So then this new "accidental" encounter at the cafe adds some complexity to Joanne and her father's relationship.
I made a seating chart, placing our sixteen actors around this massive round moon table. I looked at each interaction throughout the entire number and looked at where those actors were seated, to see what their interactions would look like physically. I made one sort of radical choice, placing the song's emcee Mark down-center, with his back to the audience. Normally that would be a no-no, but I'm gambling that it's going to work, and it will reinforce that voyeuristic feeling we're giving this scene. I also seated Joannne and her father next to each other, with Maureen on Joanne's other side (and Mark on her other side) for maximum comic discomfort.
Also, just to keep the stage full for the finale, we decided that the waiter will get pulled into a seat early on, and when Benny and Mr. Jefferson decide to leave, they get pulled into the choreography too and end up finishing the number with the kids. Also Roger and Mimi are supposed to leave at one point, but we keep them at the table. And just for my own amusement, the group reading of the word "Evita" is now done by the entire cast, not just the leads, implying that Angel's story has traveled far and fast in the last few hours.
Still, even with this groundwork, I just couldn't get my head around the whole scene at once. I knew I needed a super-structure to hang the scene on and I needed to talk it out. So I printed out the lyric, one section of the song per page, and Dowdy came over.
We slowly built an architecture. First, small hand movements just keeping the beat, then hand "choreography" (built on Tommy Tune), then head movements, then standing, then standing on the chairs, then standing on the platform, then a few people dancing on the platform, then finally everybody dancing around the platform and pretty much doing whatever they want. Controlled chaos. My favorite.
Then once we had the architecture, we filled in detail. What would the moves be, the patterns, how much repetition should we use, should we use the freezes in the script, etc. And because we were keeping characters onstage who usually aren't, we figured out just when and how the waiter, Benny, Mr. Jefferson, and Joanne would each join the fun.
My initial inclination was to bring everyone down-center at the end in a big posey clump. But Dowdy argued for keeping everyone around the giant table, and he was right. We'd gone out of our way to make this not presentational, and then I was going to slap a presentational end on it. These people should stay around their table because they're just entertaining each other. That scene (like much of Rent) has a Fourth Wall.
At least in our production.
And also, I'm already using a clump like that later, in Act II, for exactly that reason, to turn a Fourth Wall scene into a scene being shared with the audience. I think it will be very cool. So better not to use it here.
After Dowdy and I finished it, I made a cheat sheet for the actors. I do this whenever I've come up with Millerography that's really complex. I set up two columns on the page, with the lyric on the left and staging notes on the right. Even after skipping the interrupting duet scenes, my cheat sheet still ran seven pages.
This helps when I teach the actors the staging, but it helps even more later on, when they're working on it and trying to memorize it.
The night we staged it, Dowdy kept an eye on it all from the front, and I stayed inside the staging to help the actors with what comes next. They picked it up faster than I expected, and even in a somewhat rough form, it was really looking good by the end of the rehearsal. Dowdy and I both felt like it turned out just like we thought it would. We had to make a few minor adjustments as we put it on its feet, but nothing major.
There are two more steps still. First, they all have to memorize it and get comfortable with the moves. Then they'll add personality, character, relationships, and also fill up the "free-style" moments we gave them. That will give our staging the playfulness, the rowdiness, the anarchy, the connection that will make it soar – and that disturbs then envelops Benny and Mr. Jefferson.
This number really does feel different from every other production I've seen. Having some backs to the audience really changes everything. It feels a little like "Hot Lunch Jam" in Fame (which also starts with an awesome bass line!), which may be one of the most believably naturalistic musical numbers I've ever seen. We're just flies on the wall.
Jonathan Larson built this song so that it feels almost improvised. The chorus doesn't sing until Mark gives them the hook, "La Vie Bohème," and then they all sing it in perfect three-part, major-triad harmony, just like we theatre people do all the time in the Real World (you think I'm kidding, but I'm not). Then friends start to join in, with their own jokes, each one entertaining his friends, then the friends try little duets, then there's a Rent rap-off, and then we finish with Mark riffing, while everybody else just keeps singing those great chords they found at the beginning.
This isn't as far distant from reality as some folks might think. I think the reason I always loved "Hot Lunch Jam" is its authenticity. I've actually been in (far less cool) situations like this one. Artsies do shit like that.
I always felt like "La Vie Bohème" in the (brilliant) original production was a great number, but ours will be more a scene. I think it will be clear the way we're doing it, that the central action of the scene is the singing itself, the act of celebrating, the ritual of sitting down at a table together to break bread – and not just backdrop or atmosphere for the inset duet scenes.
This song's statement of powerful, strong community is what will get tested in Act II, what will get rent and restored over the next year of the narrative. I've written here before that this story is a collection of hero myth stories, and I've been trying to figure out what is the "magic amulet" (light saber, ruby slippers, magic seeds) that each of these heroes carries, that saves them. And after working on this song, I realize community is their magic amulet. Each other.
One time as Dowdy and I were working on this scene, we got stuck. We each kept throwing out ideas, but nothing that grabbed us. Then I stopped us, as I've learned to do over the years, and said, "Wait. What is this song about?" Back to basics. It's about community and connection. Okay. Reset. And then bingo, we solved the problem. That always works. I first learned that trick working on Jacques Brel (baptism by fire). Don't try to come up with what's clever or impressive; look for what communicates best and most clearly to the audience. What does this have to say and how can we best say it?
I'm really proud of what we've done with "La Vie Bohème." I can't wait to share it and see how people react to it. It's not radically different, but it is different.
On to Act II. The hardest part (blocking) is almost over and then the fun part (polishing) begins.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
P.S. Sept. 2015. Here is a video clip of "La Vie Boheme" in New Line's Rent in its final form.
It occurred to me last night on the way home from rehearsal. The one time religion is really invoked in Rent, early in "La Vie Bohème," it's held up for sustained mockery, including ironic quotes from the Latin mass and the Jewish prayer for the dead. Religion does not serve this community. The one time we see a representative of religion in the show, it's a nasty priest who's giving Collins shit about paying for the funeral. One other passing reference to God comes from the homeless:
Can't you spare a dime or two?
Here but for the grace of God go you.
It's an interesting line, since most of our characters don't seem to think much about God or religion. But with homeless people singing these lines, it reminds me of Bill Maher's contention that it's easier for middle-class and wealthy people to be atheists; it's a luxury of sorts. Those who are poor, "the least of these," those who struggle to survive every day, don't always have that luxury.
Then, midway through "La Vie Bohème," we get this gem:
To sodomy –
It's between God and me.
To S&M!
While some folks might see the suggestions of a belief in God here, it's such a confrontational, aggressive statement that we can't take it at face value. These kids are telling us they think the rules of Leviticus and the rest of the Bible are silly and anachronistic. There's not even a hint of respect for those rules or their source here.
But aside from these few references, God and religion are mostly absent in this world. Take a look at the lyric of "Another Day":
There's only us,
There's only this.
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss.
No other road,
No other way,
No day but today.
Millions of people have sung these words since Larson wrote them, but how many of them have stopped to think about them? Since we're the storytellers here, we have to do that. I always heard that lyric as just a reminder to live for the present, especially for these characters who have an uncertain future. But the more I think about it, the more there seems to be there. This lyric is saying a hell of a lot more than "Live in the present." This isn't a Hallmark poster with a kitten on it. This lyric does two jobs, both giving the community some context, in the form of the support group, and also doing some important character work between Mimi and Roger.
There's only us.
There's only this.
Could that be the show's – or Larson's – rejection of organized religion and "revealed word," rejection of a "merciful" God who brings AIDS down on his people, of various, conflicting codes of morality, of the moral cluelessness of a 2,000-year-old religion? There is no God, this lyric is telling us; there's only us. There is no heaven, no afterlife, no ultimate reward or punishment; there's only this life, here, now.
Or as John Lennon put it:
Imagine there's no heaven;
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us,
Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
I can feel some Rent fans recoiling from this reading, but the AIDS pandemic led a lot of people to question the existence of God. As Larson watched so many of his friends killed by the disease, as he saw "Christians" reject and condemn the gay community, as he heard the Religious Right claim AIDS was God's just punishment on gays, what must that have done to his ideas about God and religion? Or did he ever have any?
Forget regret,
Or life is yours to miss.
Is that a call to reject notions of sin and divine punishment? After all, by definition, the act of repentance for sins is backward-looking. Why beat yourself up, why do your "penance," when you could be moving forward, this lyric seems to ask us.
No other road,
No other way,
No day but today.
Could this mean that the only way to truth, to happiness, to enlightenment is to live fully in the reality of today, not in the mythologies of thousands of years ago, not in the spiritual bamboozles of new mythologies (I'm lookin' at you, Scientology!), but instead in the divinity of plain old human connection, love, sex, generosity, forgiveness, kindness, joy, music.
If there is spirituality in Rent, it's in the obviously named Angel. She brings out what is divine in Collins and the others. She shows us the road, this road that we're on, the one in front of us. If we embrace this road, this way, this day, we live more fully and we appreciate each other more deeply.
The song goes on, and Mimi and the support group sing:
I can't control
My destiny.
I trust my soul.
My only goal
Is just to be.
Mimi may be a heroin addict, but she's also something of a philosopher. She has self-awareness, and perhaps that's her great tragedy. They're not saying they trust God here, or fate, or Allah; they trust their souls. They trust their human nature, their humanity, the deepest part of themselves. They don't strive to be sinless or righteous or morally upright, but "just to be," just to live life, to keep moving forward, to play out their own individual hero myth stories, each on his own individual road.
There's only now,
There's only here.
Give into love
Or live in fear.
There is no eternity, the lyric seems to argue; there's only now. There is no heaven, hell, or other plane of existence; there's only here. You can choose to live in love and joy and sunlight, or you can choose to live in fear and distrust and darkness. You can work to better the lives of your fellow humans, or you can live in fear of them and what they'll take from you. (Remind you of any political parties...?)
No other path,
No other way,
No day but today.
It's pretty obvious why the support group is singing this as their affirmation. They have to find peace in living with AIDS. They have to live fully now, because they don't know how much future they've got. For Angel and Collins, that's freeing, and maybe it allows them to be themselves and accept themselves in a way they might not have otherwise. Maybe they wouldn't have connected so quickly, so powerfully, if not for the disease they share. And maybe the same is true for Roger and Mimi. They're sickness is their bond.
So why is Mimi singing this to Roger? Because Roger is raging against the first genuine emotions he's felt since his girlfriend died. He hasn't been able to "give into love" thus far, so he has "live[d] in fear." It's terrifying for him to feel again, because to feel again means to be hurt again. But Mimi has been hurt too. She really does understand what he feels. She knows that she can live in that pain or she can give into love, and she knows the same is true for Roger.
Mimi the addict-philosopher urges Roger not to think about what might happen, who might get hurt, where it all might end, and instead just focusing on being with her here, now, for as long as they've got. They don't really have a choice, other than to retreat into themselves. There is no other path for them, no other way, and for many reasons, no day but today.
We've finished blocking Act I, and this material is even richer than we all thought. What a privilege it is to work on this beautiful piece of storytelling. The journey continues...
