RENT. Five.

So the whole point of this series of Rent posts is that I spent the afternoon Sunday watching the show’s final Broadway performance on the big screen.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to go see it; I had my moment(s) with the show, and the best ones were in the past.  The high school production was sort of a fitting way to let the show rest in my memory–new energy and excitement, a sense of the impact that the piece has had as was going to continue to have in the life of young theater lovers (and some folks who didn’t even know that theater could be something they’d like).  Sitting through the filmed version of the final show would mean watching a new cast do their impressions of Idina and Adam and Daphne and Jesse and Aiko (who *still* is the only person who has ever pulled off Alexi Darling, in my eyes).  They’d never measure up.  I’d be saddened by the whole thing.  It could color my memories.  I waited until the very last showing of it, conceivably the last showing ever (the film was given a monumentally limited release).  As late as fifteen minutes before showtime, I wasn’t sure I was going to go.

I’m glad I did.

The major problem with ending on the high school production as a final memory became clear to me pretty early on: they hadn’t done the whole show.  Pieces were edited, songs were cut, words were changed.  It was a tribute, and a moving one, but it wasn’t the show.  Same was true of the movie.  But this–this was the whole show, straightforward, intermission and all, just like seeing it onstage.  This was a good thing.

While the casting had been my biggest fear, it proved pretty unfounded.  Sure, Eden Espinosa does an almost uncanny Idina Menzel impression throughout, but I think it’s unfair to even call it an impression.  I think these two performers are just that similar.  She was great with Tracie Thoms, who, like I said a few posts back, is kind of a perfect Joanne.  The other performers more than held their own, taking things in new directions and, while not accomplishing the impossible mission of measuring up to the performances I fell in love with at New York Theater Workshop twelve years ago, capturing the spirit of joy and defiance that makes the show what it is.  And there was even some original flavor in that final cast, with Gwen Stewart back in the ensemble (she’s the soloist on Seasons of Love, and she’s responsible for one of my favorite bits of dialogue in the piece: “This lot is full of motherfucking artists.  Hey artist, got a dollar?  I thought not.”

And the thing is, the show simply holds up, even better than I think  most of us thought it would when we first saw it.  The good stuff is really good, incredibly smart and emotional and fun.  “La Vie Boheme” is always going to work.  “Take Me or Leave Me” should have been a big pop hit.  “I’ll Cover You (reprise)” will always make folks cry.  The show is well-written, well-scored, and beautifully structured (until the last 25%, of course).  It’s a great show.  It really is a great show.

When the performance ended, the cast came out to take their bows, then left the stage…to be replaced by much of the original cast (very disappointing not to see Idina and Taye…or Aiko, for that matter), who then led a huge group of company members in another round of Seasons of Love.  It was all fitting really, and the only possible way to close it all out.

And then, of course, after everyone bowed, the screen faded to a picture of Jonathan Larson.

Everyone applauded.

We all got our chance to say goodbye.

RENT. One.

It’s 1996, probably February sometime.  I’m in the second semester of my first year at NYU.  I’m part of the Gallatin Scholars, a group that gets to go to cultural events as part of our scholarship package.  We get tickets to this show at New York Theater Workshop.  We sit in the front row.

Let me back up for a second, actually.  My original plan when I came to NYU was to study acting and psychology, but when I get to New York City, I see the life of the student/actor, and I know it’s not for me.  Luckily, I’m in a flexible program; I decide to transition into a more broad-based approach to my studies, with a steady helping of theatrical education as a basic structure.  I’m studying the History of Drama and Theater, mostly dramatic literature, just sort of starting to understand that there’s a whole lot more to the theater world than the stuff they teach you in college.

So I’m excited when we go see this show at NYTW.  I’ve heard about it.  There’s buzz, although at the time I’m not quite aware of exactly how much buzz there is.  A few weeks later, the show would hit the cover of Newsweek.  At the time, this doesn’t seem all that unusual to me.  It also kind of doesn’t seem entirely unusual that this is a show about young people in the neighrborhood I happen to be sitting in–there’s lots of New York theater about New York, right?  So we sit down, and the theater’s kind of small (compared to Broadway, but big compared to lots of the Off-Off houses I was just starting to discover), and the stage is HUGE (feels like the stage is as big as the house), and we’re in the front row, and the lights go down.

And it takes a little while for it all to get going.  The first few songs have fun moments and rock guitar, silly humor (in the form of Mark’s mom on the answering machine), an incredibly sweet meet-cute (between Angel and Collins), some sexiness in the form of Daphne Rubin-Vega (a brief aside: years later, I’d meet Daphne whil working for Joe’s Pub.  I attempted to introduce her to our staff, including our graphics designer, who was a good friend of mine.  I completely — legitimately — forgot my friend’s name while making the introduction.  Daphne has that kind of presence.), and a lot of goodness going for it, but it hasn’t yet blown me away.

And then…it blows me away.

I’ve said this before, and nothing will shake my faith in it: the first quarter of Rent is pretty good, the last quarter is pretty terrible (seriously), but that half in the middle, starting with “Today for You” and ending with “I’ll Cover You (reprise)” is remarkable, incredibly, devastatingly good and relevant and important and powerful.  It hit me there in the theater, and it stays with me to today.  I can’t even express what it is, but that middle chunk gets it right, so right — it’s the kind of thing that musical theater could be and can be and should be, the kind of thing that In The Heights and Passing Strange got right in chunks and pieces, the kind of thing that Crazy for You did as well as anything I’ve ever seen, only with more heart, more real soul, and more of the voice of a group of people who actually exist.  That middle chunk of Rent is a time capsule, and it was a time capsule from the moment it was created — it gets that world right, or as right as you can get it in a musical theater context.

So it’s 1996, and they’re singing La Vie Boheme, and Maureen is mooning Bennie (and they’d go on to get married in the real world), and I’m maybe ten feet from her ass, and she pulls up her pants, and I swear she winks at me.  And then it’s intermission, and I’m shell-shocked, not from the bare ass, but from what I just saw — something that felt real to me, and was full of emotion and subversion on some level, even though it’s a big musical and therefore how subversive can it really be?  But it is, and they’re singing about stuff that I don’t even know what it is but I know that in the fact that they’re mentioning it, it’s important, and I’ll come across it someday (and then last year I finally read Vaclav Havel, and lookie lookie: it leads to a name for my blog) and it’ll impact my life when it does.

And then they line up across the stage at the top of Act Two, and it’s “Seasons of Love,” and I swear they’re a foot away from me, and Taye Diggs spits on me (in the act of singing, of course), and I’m right up close in their eyes, and they’re singing this song about dead friends, and it’s written by their dead friend, and they’re singing it for him — you can see it, they’re singing that song for Jonathan Larson, and I mean — how am I ever going to settle for creating theater that isn’t founded on that close a relationship?

And also, there in the middle of it, there happens to be one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever see — and it’s a gay couple’s story.  And you have to realize that I’m 18-years-old, coming from suburbs (not far from Mark’s mom’s house, actually), and I’m only now meeting my first gay friends, and as a straight boy/athlete from the burbs, you’re not exactly conditioned to expect to be moved to the core by a gay relationship — but there it is, in front of me, and Collins sings the “I’ll Cover You (reprise),” and good god, it’s maybe the most beautiful moment I’ve ever seen onstage.

And it ends, and I’m shaken, and everything has changed, yet I’m still not sure that anything has changed beyond me, if you know what I mean.  I’m still not quite understanding the cultural significance of what I just saw.

A few months later, it moved to Broadway.  So I saw it again.

(I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.)

Air Broadway

That’s a dumb title for this post.  I was thinking of making some kind of “Defying Gravity” reference in this post, mainly so I could mention the name Idina Menzel and get a ton of hits as a result, but I’m way such cheap ploys.

Ahem.

So the real thing we’re talking about today (only took 47 words to get to it this time around) is this news article from playbill.com. If you’re too lazy to skip over to the link, here’s the nutshell version: Starting as soon as next month, passengers on American Airlines flights to New York City will be able to buy Broadway tickets right there on the flight.  Only four shows are involved in the pilot (ha!) program so far, and they’re big shows–Chicago, Phantom, Mamma Mia!, and Spamalot–the kind of shows that out-of-towners are certainly going to see as events.  And I guess that people must like to spend money in the air, as evidenced by Skymall’s continued success selling stuff like this that travelers seem to feel urgent needs for while en route.  So there is certainly potential for some sales there.

I think the greater (and ultimately unmeasurable) impact of something like this is that it’s yet another chance for these shows to get in front of the eyes of the target Broadway consumer: the out-of-towner with disposable income and an as-yet-unformed itinerary.  And it’s obviously a way for the airline to wring a few extra bucks out a passenger here and there (they’ll take a fee for each ticket purchased).  But is there really a value for the consumer?  They could get the same seats (probably better seats) for the same cost (probably cheaper) if they wait until they hit the ground.

It’ll be interesting to follow this one.

(In other news…I am back in NYC.  School starts Wednesday.  I’ve got lots to do before then.  I do anticipate being back at the blog full-time though.  Lots of socks to post, draft to finish, Chicago recap stuff…and of course, that Obama guy.)

And finally, here’s what SCS means.

So a few folks (hi Mom) have finally, with much prodding from me, broken down and asked what the title of this blog means. The answer is probably not going to be all that exciting.

The Smichovsky Compensation Syndrome comes from a play called Temptation by Vaclav Havel. That name, of course, sounds familiar to you Rentheads (and here’s where I mention Idina Menzel to get my views up), as he’s mentioned in “La Vie Boheme.” For those who don’t know, Havel was a playwright who went on to slightly bigger things…like being the final President of Czechoslovakia. He wrote somewhat absurdist works, although not like Ionesco or Beckett–more about the repetition and lockstep of everyday life–very Sisyphusian stuff.

In Temptation, a sorcerer named Fistula describes the Smichovsky Compensation Syndrome as this:

When a novice first manages to break through the armor of his old defenses and opens himself up to the immense horizons of his hidden potential, after a little while something like a hangover sets in and he sinks into an almost masochistic state of self-accusation and self-punishment.

Of course, he’s talking about selling your soul to the Devil, basically, but I like to think of that little sentence as exactly what it means to be a writer.

More Rent in High School.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A641653

So the short story of that link is that there was supposed to be a big high school production of Rent in Austin this summer, but then it was off, and now it’s back on again.  You get the feeling that this might be the story of this show for a year or so at least as high school attempt to put it on, then run into opposition because of the content.  The weird thing, and I didn’t mention this in my last Rent post, is that folks who complain about the show are likely to do so because of the homosexuality and drug use, but (a) the drug use is far from glorified (even “La Vie Boheme” pretty much skirts that issue) and (b) the homosexual relationships are some of the most beautiful relationships you’ll find in the theater.  Maybe that’s the problem for some folks.

The real tricky part to doing Rent in high school is figuring out how to handle Mimi.  The character is hypersexualized, and any young woman who has seen Daphne Rubin-Vega (or any of the women who have followed in her footsteps onstage) or Rosario Dawson (I love Rosario Dawson) play the role is almost invariably going to try to live up to their gyrations and “sexiness.”  The problem there is Daphne and Rosario (I love Rosario Dawson) are sexy grown women who happen to be playing a 19-year-old dancer–they are inherently sexy women who are able to convey a sexuality that is inherent to the character.  Having a seventeen-year-old girl writhing onstage in a high school production is (a) a disservice to the play, usually, and (b) kind of way more problematic then a little kiss from Angel and Collins or the word “fuck” in “Tango Maureen.”

Oh, and Idina Menzel.

A Quick Look at New York Theater.

This will hopefully be a semi-regular feature here on Smichovsky Compensation Syndrome (side note: I haven’t had a single person ask me about the name of the blog, which is awfully surprising. I assume either you all immediately get the reference–which I know is not the case–or you’re all researching it and coming away satisfied. Or you just don’t care). I post on this “general discussion” message board sometimes (okay, a lot of times), and every once in a while I throw up what I call an EASILY IGNORED THEATER POST, since most of the folks who visit that site aren’t really checking for theater like that. But now I have a blog where people show up to read about Rent and Idina Menzel and The Tony Awards (tag tag tag), so hopefully this will be a more effective public service.

1. Not surprisingly, a bunch of shows have posted closing notices after missing out on Tony Awards and ticket bumps. Passing Strange remains my big concern. As of the week ending June 22 (the last week of receipts available on variety.com AND the first week after the Tonys), the show is only playing to 60% full houses, and only pulling in about $260K — one third of its potential net receipts.  As a comparison, In The Heights is up to 99% capacity houses and making over $900 grand a week–just about maxing out.  Now of course, Heights won Best Musical, and the buzz there is undeniable, and there’s no way to compare expectations for one show against the other.  But Strange simply isn’t finding its audience, and its a shame, because as I’ve said here before, it might be a better show top-to-bottom than Heights.  So here’s my last ditch plea: go see Passing Strange.  A lot of these other shows will be around for a while.  You’re going to kick yourself if you miss it.

2.  Other interesting stuff to note from the returns: Grease got a $105K bump after the Tonys — did that performance really convince people they needed to see this show?…Gypsy, to no one’s surprise, had a huge bump after Patti won her Tony, bringing in an additional $125K (or half of what Strange brought in total) for the week.  That show will be close to sold out as long as she sticks around…Legally Blonde also got a MASSIVE bump ($117K), and I’m sure it had to be some kind of coincidence–was there some MTV related activity going on that week?

Okay, enough Broadway.

3.  New York Theatre Workshop has announced its 08-09 season.  I’m reserving judgment a bit.  They’re only doing three full productions, plus an Encores! kinda thing for underappreciated Off-Bway musicals and some political work around the election.  They’ve got some limitations this year due to some budget issues (losing the income from Rent certainly doesn’t help), so the lightened schedule makes sense.  I’m not super excited about anything in the season just yet (which is troublesome, since The Public has such a lights out lineup), but I’ll keep my eyes open.

4.  In a Variety story that will only interest some of you and then only in passing (Strange, go see it), New York is considering tax breaks for Broadway producers.  This is kind of a big deal (c) Ron Burgandy.

5. The Summer Play Festival kicks off this week at The Public.  They’ve limited the slate (now I’m talking like Variety) to just two shows a week (down from four in the olden days on Theatre Row) for a total of just eight shows (down from sixteen–and even more the first year, I believe).  I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for SPF.  Some of you reading this will remember seeing Welcome to Arroyo’s way back in the 2005 Festival.  The folks at SPF and Arielle Tepper Productions always treated the artists well, and certainly knew how to throw a party (or six).  That said, there are limitations to the festival’s structure: it’s great for small, self-contained plays that can easily be produced in two weeks with a little bit of money, but it doesn’t give larger plays a whole lot of time to find their way.  I’ve seen more than a few plays come off poorly at SPF simply because they were too big to get on their feet in the time alotted.

So basically, what I’m saying is this: go to SPF.  See a bunch of shows.  Tickets are cheap.  The shows are usually well-selected and diverse.  You’ll have a good time.  Just keep in mind that the shows are far from finished productions (the SPF people don’t always remind audiences of this).

On a last SPF note, my long-time buddy (we used to play the most ridiculous ER-based speculation game on the planet in college) Caitlin Moon is directing Tio Pepe by Matthew Lopez in the festival’s last week.  Go see it.

Let’s Talk About Rent.

So I’m out here in Nebraska, right?

I’m teaching and dramaturging for the International Thespian Festival, which is basically a massive gathering of high school theater nerds (and of course, I say this with the utmost affection) for a week of workshops and plays and community. The whole experience is pretty amazing, with thousands of kids swarming the University of Nebraska campus, singing showtunes, and being, for once at least, completely in their dream element. There’s theater everywhere you go, and it’s wildly accepting and open and positive, and when you’re involved in high school theater, that’s exactly what you need (and rarely get in real life).

Every night during the week there is a different show on the mainstage of the campus; these shows are kind of the main event of the week, and are attended by hundreds of students and adults. Tonight’s show was performed by students from Mary D. Bradford High School from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Tonight’s show was Rent.

Let’s back up and talk about Rent itself for a second. The first time I saw Rent was back in 1996 in its original incarnation at New York Theatre Workshop as part of a school trip. We sat in the front row center. Idina Menzel flirted with me from the stage. Taye Diggs spit on me as he sang Seasons of Love. My jaw stayed pretty solidly on the floor throughout the night (although thankfully, it was closed as the spit was flying). I had never seen a show like this–young energy, music that seemed to follow more in the footsteps of Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair then in the traditional show-tune stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. More importantly, I had never seen actors who so deeply cared about what they were performing, who were so ludicrously invested in the show and its message that the audience couldn’t help but be dragged right along with them into the story, into the world of the play. It’s impossible to explain to folks who didn’t see that production exactly what that production was, because I’m not sure there’s ever been anything quite like it, not with that moment and those circumstances. It was a true phenomenon, and to this day one of the most moving theatrical experiences I have ever had.

And then, tonight.

I don’t do reviews on this blog, and I’m certainly not going to review a high school production of anything, let alone of an edited (read: sanitized) version of a musical with, as they say, “mature themes” that are probably far and beyond what any high school student has a right to be able to play. But I will say this, and I’ll skip a space for emphasis:

God damn, that was amazing.

I’ve never been a party to giving a show a standing ovation in the middle of the performance. I was tonight. We talk about showstoppers. We overuse the term. Tonight, I saw a showstopper. An audience full of high school students were sobbing, audibly sobbing. Grown folks were sobbing, audibly sobbing. We’re talking a bravura performance here in the middle of the show, with an ensemble that virtually became a church choir, and a Joanne/Tom Collins combination that, that, that–I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. Beautiful, moving, powerful. Stunning really.

And that’s not the thing; here’s the thing. If you dive back a few posts (I’m to lazy to link for you), you’ll see my feelings about In The Heights and the way it activates audiences and celebrates community in that way that only theater can do. Rent does that naturally–that’s why it’s run this long, sold this many CDs. Now take what Rent does naturally, and multiply that by hundreds of high school students who have been listening to the CD their entire theatrical life, who have memorized every line without ever having seen the show in person. Multiply that by this atmosphere, this glorious week-long oasis where the theater geeks are the rock stars, are the centers of our own little isolated universe, where we all sing along to Rent and aren’t ashamed, don’t consign it to the guilty pleasure column but embrace it, embrace it as a sign of our communal values and beliefs, cling to it as a validation of our deep need for community and union and acceptance and yes, love, unconditional love, the kind of love, as they say, “that Angel had.”

Go ahead. Multiply it by those things.

If you can’t work out the equation, here’s what you get:

When Maureen tells the audience to “moo with me,” everyone–everyone–in the auditorium starts to moo, and moo loudly, and moo the way the character actually wants them to moo: deeply, from the heart. These kids are mooing as a sign of resistance, as a sign of rebellion and transgression, and yes it’s sanitized, and yes it’s censored and controlled, but you know what? These kids would have mooed for ten minutes straight if the cast had let them, because right there, in that moment–and this sounds stupid and overdramatic, but I’m a dramatist, so whatever–right there in that moment, a generation of theater kids belonged. And belonged together. And I went all kinds of emo.

And for me, the thing is this (I know I said I already discussed the thing, but here’s the thing behind the thing, which is a Guernica reference for those of you who know that play): I didn’t think Rent was going to hold up all that well. I thought it was dated. I let the awful movie and the last 30 minutes of the show itself (which I think is pretty uninspiring and unfinished, quite frankly) blind me to the fact (and I think it is a fact, not an opinion) that the first 3/4 of that show is pretty effing remarkable, and unique, and groundbreaking just like all the press and hype had claimed it to be. It’s a powerful show, period, not just for those of us who saw it in the shadow of Jonathan Larson’s untimely passing.

And these kids–these kids got it. Twelve years later.

Now look. It’s not a perfect show to begin with (like I said, the last 1/4 really falls apart, I think, and there are some problematic story points throughout), and the censored-down high school version raises a whole bunch of other questions and issues, particularly in the realms of gender and sexual politics. But tonight–tonight I saw something that I really liked: a theater world that’s evolving, becoming contemporary, becoming relevant to young people while maintaining some kind of socially relevant edge. And I realized that In The Heights and Passing Strange and the like are keeping this alive and taking it new directions, and I remembered that the only person out of his seats to give the Rent performance at the Tonys its due and well-deserved standing O was Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Because he got it.

Like these kids get it now.

(Slightly unrelated–I stumbled across this on youtube just now. Wow.)