Hot Take: Should I see RENT Live?

It’s that time of year again, when networks are trotting out their live musical sensations to entice viewers to tune in en masse.  This year, FOX is bringing us Rent Live!, helmed by musical mega-producer and executive director, Marc Platt.

But the question remains for Catholic audiences with musical theatre enthusiasts in their home:

Should I see it?

The Pros

Considering that Marc Platt has actually had a decent run of live musicals lately, especially in adapting more adult material such as FOX’s Grease,  and NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar, a live TV production of Rent looks like another surefire hit.

Add in Platt’s previous collaborators of Vanessa Hudgens (Rizzo in Grease Live, and now Maureen in Rent), Jordan Fischer (Doody in Grease Live, John Laurens/Philip Hamilton in Hamilton on Broadway, and now Marc in Rent), and Brandon Victor Dixon (Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar Live, Aaron Burr in Hamilton on Broadway, and now Collins in Rent), all of whom have proven themselves on stage and in this particular live TV spectacle, and the musical is standing on pretty solid ground.

Rent Live will also benefit from a built-in audience and perhaps more importantly, comparison to the failed Christopher Columbus-helmed movie musical from 2005.  What that adaptation proved,  more than anything, is that Rent is a stage play, as well as a sung-through opera.  To tell the story of Rent, a hyper-theatricality is more helpful to eliciting pathos than the hyper-reality of film.

(To compare, see the film on Netflix, and then watch the live stage version.  The latter is worlds better.)

Given that Platt’s previous TV outings absolutely retain their theatricality, and that he produces sung-through rock operas unapologetically, the live TV medium looks like a perfect match for the spectacle of Rent.

The Cons

All of that might be well and good, but what about the content of the show?

Rent is notorious for being a celebration of less-than-savory characters.  Loosely based on Puccini’s La Bohème, setting the story during the AIDS crisis of the mid-90’s in the run-down Alphabet City of New York, the stage is flooded with drug addicts, drag queens, anarchists and queer heroes.

The theological difficulty lies not so much with who the play features – since as Christians, we should be highly cognizant that all people are worthy of love and having their stories told – but rather with the carelessness and privilege of some of our protagonists.

• The title song, “Rent,” outlines a young group of would-be artists who refuse to pay their rent and don’t understand why their landlord is evicting them.
• Add to this that our protagonists have loving, if interfering parents, who could likely subsidize their living arrangements: which is to say, our protagonists’ squalor is voluntary.
• The musical frames their former friend turned successful business man, Benny, for “selling out” – which is to say, for trying to find a means to turn the condemned spaces where our heroes are squatting into an arts collective where our heroes could work on their art and live at low cost.
• And later, when our narrator Mark, a documentarian filmmaker, is hired for a cushy job at a local TV station, he’s miserable for “selling out” – that is, for making a living at his art, rather than making home films about his friends.

As mentioned, Rent examines the worst of the AIDS crisis, and while there are some legitimately touching songs, largely from the chorus rather than from the protagonists, about what it’s like to live HIV-positive, it’s rather frustrating when the big Act I musical number, “La Vie Bohème” has all our heroes celebrating with perfect earnestness the very choices which are killing them.

Honestly, as an adult watching this movie, I mostly want to take the characters and shake them, shouting:

“Grow up and take responsibility!  Pay your stupid rent!”

Lastly, as I’ve noted before, for my money I’m not a fan of disjointed rock music as a basis for my sung-through operas.  Jesus Christ Superstar is never going to be a go-to track for me, and the score for Rent only has a few songs that are pleasing to my ear.  However, this is merely a matter of taste.  And I heartily concede that while Larson’s score isn’t to my preference, it does hang together as a single piece of art.

No Day But Today

The theme of Rent can be summed up in a leitmotif which runs throughout the musical:

There’s only us
There’s only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other choice
No other way
No day but today

This short-term view of the world makes very little sense to the Christian who believes eschatologically in a rather important tomorrow.  And it’s easy to become frustrated with characters who are killing themselves with drugs, sex, etc. that poison them.

However, I will cop to the fact that the few times I’ve been really moved by Rent have been when I am down and out: when I’m truly poor and desperate to pay my rent (everything you’ve read about New York City real estate is true), when I’ve suffered loss, when it feels like there’s no day but today, well then Mark and Roger and Mimi and Maureen have a certain appeal.

Similarly, when I asked some of my students back when the movie came out why they liked the story when these characters were so wholly irresponsible, their response came back:

“It’s a musical where everyone has someone.  Where no one is so unlovable that they’re left alone.”

This is an important distinction, I think, and one I hear echoed by many Rent-heads.  What those who love the musical get out of it is a sense of being accepted, of being seen, of being told – even imperfectly – that they are worthy of being loved.

Those who may, with some justification, loathe the musical may point to the addicts and the drag queens and the anarchists and the queer heroes and presume that’s enough to condemn the whole piece.  But there’s a reason why the play is set at Christmas: when the Savior, who would seek out exactly the prostitute and thief, came as one homeless Himself.  To love those whom the world condemns.

Final Thoughts

Rent is far from a perfect work of art.  And absolutely should be watched with discretion.  It’s most appropriate for teenagers and up, and I highly recommend if you’re watching it with your children to have a loving and thoughtful conversation after it.

Frankly, though, if you suspect that your child may be gay, transgender, queer, addicted, or suffering from disease, I’d encourage you to use the musical to let them speak.  Your job is to love them first.  And that means to listen, not to lecture.

If you’re interested in using Rent as a means to open up difficult conversation in your household, Rent Live might be a better presentation than the movie or the Broadway recording.  There are quite a few blue words used in both of those which I guarantee you will be excised from the TV production.  (Although frankly I think the use of the F-bomb in “Tango Maureen” is spot on.)  The likelihood is that Rent Live will be slightly Disneyfied, which may make viewing and discussion easier for your household, if blue language and explicit content are touchy subjects in your house.

Regardless, I’m interested to see how Marc Platt and company approach this controversial and watershed musical for the small screen.  I’ll be back after it airs for my full review, and in the meantime tell me what you think about the musical in the comments below!

Image courtesy of FOX.

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