Summer '98 I was twelve, playing Mr. MacAfee in CMT's production of Bye Bye Birdie. I was still in the process of acquainting myself with musical theatre. My first show was the summer before that in Annie, and even by the standards of the eight and nine-year-old Junior Company vets I was working with, I was a fledgling performer. My voice had yet to change and I was still in the "cute" chubby phase. And Ethan Weiner just had to let me borrow his copy of Rent.
The characters! The swears! The Music! It was, like, all sung! Oh, Jonathon Larson, why did you have to have an aneurysm? Why couldn't your blessing to us continue? It was alive to me, even the boring songs (I always skipped "Without You," the song in between the two parts of "La Vie Boheme," "I'll Cover You," and various others). For a couple of years I wanted every song I wrote to be "La Vie Boheme," or "I'll Cover You Reprise" or "What You Own." The harmonies; the counterpoint.
And so, of course Rent the movie in 2005 isn't going to live up to Rent the sublimely wonderful stage musical in 1998. Of course the spoken dialogue that was once recitative (in the mid-nineties adult pop rock sense of the term) is going to sound stilted and weird to my ears. Does that mean that it could have been adapted better?
I don't know. I just remember the characters being much more vibrant and distinguishable. Does that really have that much to do with how much they sing instead of talk? Somehow, even though they took the characters off of a stage and put them in the real world, the pageantry of it is magnified. The grand seize-the-day-isms just don't pack the same punch, after you watch Maureen writhe around on a pool table in a country club in the middle of their commitment ceremony, or whatever it is.
Most of the songs are there (except the totally awesome street vendor scene), and most of the original cast is there, which already makes it at least a C. They even have echoes of the original staging. "Without You" is made bearable by watching Angel's illness take hold, and Collins caring for her, just like the show. But I can't shake the feeling that Rent, like all good shows, is inextricably bound to the stage. But hell, Rent was IT before I discovered Kurt Weill and Michael John LaChiusa, and it makes me happy in my heart that it's made it to the movies, and I would gladly see it again.
-Max
The characters! The swears! The Music! It was, like, all sung! Oh, Jonathon Larson, why did you have to have an aneurysm? Why couldn't your blessing to us continue? It was alive to me, even the boring songs (I always skipped "Without You," the song in between the two parts of "La Vie Boheme," "I'll Cover You," and various others). For a couple of years I wanted every song I wrote to be "La Vie Boheme," or "I'll Cover You Reprise" or "What You Own." The harmonies; the counterpoint.
And so, of course Rent the movie in 2005 isn't going to live up to Rent the sublimely wonderful stage musical in 1998. Of course the spoken dialogue that was once recitative (in the mid-nineties adult pop rock sense of the term) is going to sound stilted and weird to my ears. Does that mean that it could have been adapted better?
I don't know. I just remember the characters being much more vibrant and distinguishable. Does that really have that much to do with how much they sing instead of talk? Somehow, even though they took the characters off of a stage and put them in the real world, the pageantry of it is magnified. The grand seize-the-day-isms just don't pack the same punch, after you watch Maureen writhe around on a pool table in a country club in the middle of their commitment ceremony, or whatever it is.
Most of the songs are there (except the totally awesome street vendor scene), and most of the original cast is there, which already makes it at least a C. They even have echoes of the original staging. "Without You" is made bearable by watching Angel's illness take hold, and Collins caring for her, just like the show. But I can't shake the feeling that Rent, like all good shows, is inextricably bound to the stage. But hell, Rent was IT before I discovered Kurt Weill and Michael John LaChiusa, and it makes me happy in my heart that it's made it to the movies, and I would gladly see it again.
-Max
posted by Max at 1:08 AM
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