The company of the Rent 20th Anniversary Tour (Carol Rosegg)
How do you measure a year? What about 20?
For two decades, Rent has been measuring life in love—and in ticket sales. The Rent 20th Anniversary Tour is currently on stage at the National Theatre, where the original touring show made its D.C. debut back in the ’90s. Many times five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes later, the production still packs the house.
Whether attendees caught the original run (which opened on Broadway in 1996), were introduced to the rock musical through the 2005 film, or fell in love with the soundtrack somewhere along the way, Rent is a crowd pleaser that gets people clapping, hooping, hollering, and taking plenty of selfies in the lobby at intermission. Evan Ensign directs this resurrection of Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award-winning show, a re-imagined version of Puccini’s La Bohème.
With this cast, Rent is still a good reason to go out (owwww-ooooot) tonight. Danny Harris Kornfeld opens the play as Mark Cohen, the filmmaker who uses his camera to document real life. He embodies the confident yet nerdy character made famous by Anthony Rapp. Kaleb Wells plays Mark’s musician roommate Roger, who is dealing with the death of his girlfriend April and his own AIDS diagnosis. As he copes with all that negativity, he tries to write one great song. His ultimate creation “Your Eyes” isn’t anything to write home about, but it wasn’t in 1996 either.
Wells embodies the angsty rocker guy, infusing an edgy scream into his Broadway harmonies and solos. In long hair, thick eyeliner, and an all-black wardrobe, Roger is a little more Green Day than hardcore—not that anyone is questioning Wells’ authenticity in the role. He brings the attitude and balances the vocal qualities necessary for angry, armored Roger.
Katie Lamark (Maureen) is less effective at the scream-sing technique and would be better off sticking to the score and letting the lyrics speak to her character’s attitude. The aggressive vocal technique is an unnecessary and distracting choice for the bold duet “Take Me or Leave Me,” sung with Joanne (played on opening night by the talented Alia Hodge, standing in for Jasmine Easler). But Lamark wins audiences over with her well-timed rendition of “Over the Moon,” the protest song that gets people laughing as she portrays the incredibly dramatic and egocentric Maureen hamming it up on stage.
The set conjures up images of dive bars and memories of cheap, college dwellings, made colorful with posters and tree lights. Those multi-colored lights bedecking a Christmas tree provide a quaintly beautiful backdrop to the romantic duet “I’ll Cover You,” sung by lovers Tom Collins (Aaron Harrington) and Angel Schunard (David Merino).
Merino is an ideal Angel, both looking and acting the part. Young, sassy, and confident with drag queen dance chops and delicately handsome features, the newcomer to professional theater brings the necessary pep to his role—a clear crowd favorite, as evidenced by the whistles that echo through the theater in the show stopping “Today 4 U.” He also has a voice that turns either sweet or feisty when necessary. It’s a lovely counterpart to Harrington’s rich baritone.
Together, the pair paint a tragic love story of two young men who are completely mad for each other, but will be ultimately torn apart by disease. Every character in Rent deals with love and AIDS, either first-hand or through their friends. The production is set in New York’s Alphabet City during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when life expectancy with the condition was low and fear was high.
Merino, a student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, isn’t the only freshman cast member. The stage is filled with young faces, made more striking by the seriousness of the very adult issues their characters face. At just 19, Mimi (Skyler Volpe) is on her own in New York, dancing for a living and popping AZT to stay alive.
Her wild curls bounce as she crawls, spins, and grinds in “Out Tonight,” a number that has Volpe doing impressive pole work on the set’s metal railings, with the stage as her provocative playground. In this play about youth, life, love, and death, Volpe brings Mimi roaring to life with sex appeal and bouncy, boundless energy—at least until she needs her fix.
Mimi’s HIV status might not pack the same punch as it did in 1996, when AIDS had just dropped from being the leading cause of death for American adults. But with opioid abuse making headlines, her addiction to heroin should capture a modern audience’s attention. Mimi is young, beautiful, vibrant, and utterly dependent on a substance that’s killing her.
Other themes also still resonate: love, friendship, privilege, and the exhausting truth that the rent will always be too damn high.
The electricity goes in and out in Mark and Roger’s fictional East Village apartment. But 20 years after Rent’s Broadway debut, the energy that Mark, Joanne, Maureen, Mimi, Roger, Tom, and Angel bring to the stage is still electrifying.
There’s no day but today to see Rent, on stage at the National Theatre through June 25. Tickets here.
