 Another Time, Another Place |
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Before Rent started and I was sitting in my seat in the movie theater, I became suddenly terrified, bordering on the point of getting an upset stomach, that the mostly young audience would plunge the experience into dark ruination by singing along with the songs. I was actually gripped with fear about this. But I need not have worried, because the minute the black and white logo appeared on the screen followed by the silent black and white credits, it was dead quiet in there. And when the first beautiful shot of the cast came up and they were singing on that stage, I could almost sense that the audience was holding its breath. And I remember feeling that exact same way the first time I saw it onstage, and that memory made me get choked up in my seat. God! Okay. So let me just say that Adam Pascal impressed the hell out of me. I truly was convinced that his hair would prove to be such a revolting distraction that I wouldn't be able to take him seriously. But within seconds, I forgot about the Roger with the short blond hair and the tight plaid pants and totally believed every aspect of this Roger. Phew. At one point, I leaned over and whispered to my sister, "Adam Pascal is doing so well." She whispered/squealed, "I'm so proud of him." I was mildly horrified by the camera angle on "Your Eyes" because I don't understand why they didn't just have him actually pick up a guitar and start playing the song instead of peering over Mimi in that insanely close-up way like he was about to enter the lens and eat my head. I thought that shortchanged an otherwise very well-acted and well-sung moment by Pascal. Anyway. He was really great all-around. Where was this so-called redemption of Benny we keep hearing about it? Whatever. Poor Benny and poor Taye Diggs. He was gorgeous and very good in what little he was given to do, of course. Tracie Thoms was amazing vocally and totally believable and totally deserving of the high praise she's been receiving. Idina Menzel was good; I never saw her as Maureen, and she is so totally Elphaba in my mind at this point, and I was worried about "Over the Moon," but it was staged really well and performed quite hilariously. And she has a very pretty ass. I loved the Life Support scenes. My sister started full out sobbing during "Look, I find some of what you teach suspect, because I'm used to relying on intellect, but I'll try to open up to what I don't know." I was very sad that it did not, as in the play, have Roger join in on the end of that part, "Because reason says I should have died three years ago ..." But still. These scenes were lovely. Jesse L. Martin was exactly as I remember him as Collins -- fluid and relaxed and natural and full of life and heart. It was great to see him and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as the only couple still played by both of its original cast members. Their comfort with each other really shone through. Wilson Jermaine Heredia was the same sweet, beautiful Angel as always -- and the scene when he went to break the padlock with the trash can and Collins said, "You're drunk," and he denied it? That was damn funny stuff. Rosario Dawson was beyond gorgeous -- her singing, her dancing, her acting, her shivering, the way she cried with her entire face trembling at the end of the "I'll Cover You" reprise -- which, by the way, was awesome. The way the other characters joined in singing with Collins at the church almost like they were singing a hymn while basically bawling their eyes out -- it was just fantastically moving. Anyway. I adored Daphne Rubin-Vega, to be sure, but there's no question that in a lot of ways, Rosario Dawson pretty much ends up being the heart of this story onscreen. There was not one false moment in her entire performance. And Anthony Rapp. What can I even say? He was just spot-on perfect. He was funny and real and I really just thought I would burst with joy when seeing the way he charged into his familiar, wild gesticulations on the table in the Life Cafe during "La Vie Boheme." The slow motion dancing while other couples were making out at the end was a bizarre directorial choice, but I guess it served well to highlight Mark's isolation. And SPEAKING OF MARK'S ISOLATION. (Deep breath.) When I heard about the cutting of "Halloween" and "Goodbye Love" (the sections with the Mark/Roger fight and the Roger/Mimi goodbye), I was hella upset. HELLA. I read Anthony Rapp's explanation of the cuts and really tried to grow more at peace with their absence. But holy crap. I really felt that cutting these songs really left a big hole in the second act. The jump between the "I can't believe this is goodbye" in the cemetery to ALL OF A SUDDEN "What You Own" was so jarring that I just sat there blinking while hearing that lovely, haunting piano intro playing in my head and expecting to hear it onscreen. But no. First of all, the fight between Roger and Mark is just a great fucking song and really just a great exploration into their relationship and the shit they've both been dealing with. The way that they call each other out on the other's fears is just awesome, and it's tense and angry and powerful and I'm frankly just really bummed that it got cut. Okay. Also, the goodbye between Mimi and Roger is beautiful and sad and really shows how this couple is being torn apart and how wrecked they are. But -- gone. Okay. So. "Halloween." What. A. Loss. Mark is at the center of this story. Okay? It's literally framed from his perspective and we follow him the entire way through it. Or we should. But we lose track of him when we lose this song where he just sits there and thinks, "What the fuck?" It fully encapsulates the perfect retrospective of the entire story up until that point and oh I don't know pretty much spawns his entire drive to tell Alexi Darling to fuck her damn self. GAH. BUT NO. Instead of all of this wonderful music and completely necessary unfolding of the drama, we jump into "What You Own." A song I wholly love, by the way, primarily for the explosive way that Roger and Mark come together and pretty much have complete life epiphanies and the whole greatness of the song is wrapped up in how they are playing off of each other. And Roger, lo, is standing on some kind of DESERT MOUNTAINTOP with his hair blowing in the wind for much of the song. My favorite, and I think the most effective and powerful, part of this song is when Roger busts back onstage in his leather jacket while carrying his goddamn guitar and belts out like a rockstar, "The filmmaker cannot see ..." and then Roger and Mark rock out TOGETHER. I think separating them for so much of the song really sucked a lot of the life out of it. I loved the rooftop reunion of the end, but I thought it needed to be way more togetherness and way less desert wind hair blowing. But -- but. I still loved the movie. It moved me on many levels that I lack the words to explain, and the good tremendously outweighs the not-so-good. There are a few throw-the-book moments where I just felt a bit awkward, but that was okay. The audience was 100% with the movie the entire time and you could just tell that we all wanted to love it and we all did. We sat there silently as the vision of Angel's face -- and oh my GOD, what a perfect, beautiful last frame that fully captured that incredible moment when Angel joins the rest of the cast in the last moments of the play -- faded to black -- until the applause just started. And it was loud and warm and appreciative. That sounds like such a movie theater cliché, I know, but it really happened. And people's eyes and cheeks were wet with tears and people were smiling as we walked down the steps. And my sister mooned about Adam Pascal, "I COULD see it in his eyes. Couldn't YOU?" And my brother and I kind of laughed at her but not meanly and we might have walked with our arms around each other for a minute. And we all went to my parents' house after and watched part of the tape with the compilation of clips that I bought online in like 1996 and we watched the Primetime special about Jonathan Larson's death and could only just sit there and say, "Damn." I got home and pulled out my Rent file folders, full of magazine clippings and photos and articles and print-outs of every piece of trivia available online back when it first opened. I swear to God, I would go to libraries, check out the magazines covering it, and CUT OUT the articles and return the magazines. I stole the Newsweek "Love Among the Ruins" issue with Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega on the cover from the library of the high school where I taught in 1998. That is how obsessed I was for so many years and how clearly immoral I was about it. (Sorry, libraries. Truly.) I thought about how during the summer of 1996, right after it had opened on Broadway, I was working at Disney World but was bound and determined to get to New York to see it. So I charged a plane ticket on my dad's Discover card without asking him and went straight from the airport to the Nederlander only to stand there on the sidewalk with my suitcase to find out that there wasn't a ticket to be had. I was crushed and ended up seeing Sunset Boulevard. My dad wasn't even mad at me but rather left me a phone message with my Disney World roommates to tell me to remember him to Herald Square. I looked at the pictures of when I finally got there and knew I would not leave until I got that ticket and Shelley and I lay under blankets and cardboard and visquene with strangers waiting to see an unforgettable performance where the only absent original cast member was Idina Menzel on that night of all nights. I'm so glad that I saw it today and that it was beautiful and that I loved it. I think everyone involved can be really proud of following it through to this moment. I can't imagine how the average moviegoer who hasn't seen the play and doesn't already have a strong conection with the material will respond to it. It wasn't a perfect movie, but I didn't really watch it as a movie. I just watched it as Rent. And I've loved it for as long as I've known it existed and I'll love it forever. 
About this time in ...
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