| re: Anybody see RENT at Tisch? | |
| Posted by: Revned 10:23 pm EDT 05/04/24 | |
| In reply to: Anybody see RENT at Tisch? - schauspieler 03:08 pm EDT 05/02/24 | |
|
|
|
| I saw it this afternoon. There were quite a few empty seats, so I'm sorry they said it was sold out. It was in the Iris Cantor Theatre, a beautiful new 350-seat space on Houston and Mercer. It was a mixed bag. Some of the staging was awkward, and the pacing was slow, especially in the dialogue scenes. But the actors gave very committed, emotional performances and most of them sang well. Collins and Angel were the standouts and could play those roles anywhere. The Mimi was fierce and really wailed on the vocals; not sure her voice would have survived a longer run with that kind of treatment, but it was impressive here. An interestingly original take on Maureen; she didn't go for the diva attitude and glamor but focused on Maureen's serious commitment to her message, which made "Over the Moon" less funny but in a way more compelling than usual. A sort of nonbinary take on Roger that didn't really make sense for that character, though the actor sang well. But there were too many liberties taken with the material. New arrangements of some of the songs, adding backup singers at times. An AIDS protest march, complete with chanting, was added in the middle of "Without You." Roger sang "Your Eyes" a cappella, with Maureen and Joanne singing backup. And "Seasons of Love" was extended with a new choral arrangement. The director's concept seemed to be to involve the ensemble members as much as possible, which was sometimes effective but often distracting. Worst of all, the ending of the show was changed so that Mimi died in the last scene. They kept the line "her fever's breaking," but rather than waking up she expired on the table and the last number was sung with the other characters grieving. There was a well-publicized story a few years back when a production at Towson University in Maryland tried the same thing; somebody reported it after the opening night and MTI ordered them to restage it to conform to Larson's intentions immediately or close the show. The incident got a lot of coverage at the time and is reported in detail in the book RENT FAQ, so I was amazed and dismayed that someone tried it again. And even more dismayed that they somehow got away with it this time; the final performance was this evening. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | Anybody see RENT at Tisch? - schauspieler 03:08 pm EDT 05/02/24 |
| Next: | re: Anybody see RENT at Tisch? - jjbkvm 10:30 pm EDT 05/04/24 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.017103 seconds.