RENT. Six. (Post-RENT|IN THE HEIGHTS)

It’s been one week since I saw Rent’s final performance in the movie theater.  I have seen five shows (all but one were musicals or near-musicals) since then, not to mention another near-musical and another play last week.  And they all, in some way, can be tied back to Rent in my head.  I’ll go one by one here (actually, now that I think about it, I’ll list them here and split them into smaller discussion posts; contentcontentcontent), and I’ll ask you to remember that I’m not reviewing anything here–just tossing out some personal thoughts cultivated in the glow of my reexaminations of the Rent experience.  These are the shows:

In The Heights
Hairspray
Boom Bap Meditations and the break/s (both part of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival that I’ll discuss together)
Rock of Ages
Close Ties and Man For All Seasons (very different plays that I’ll discuss together)

So that’s the list.  And I’ll start, fittingly, with a show I’ve already discussed semi-intensively here: In The Heights.  This is what I wrote about the show right before The Tonys, which was right after I saw it for the first time:

In The Heights made me cry, and made me cry repeatedly (well, not cry, but tears in my eyes intermittently from the moment the music started), not because of the touching stories of love and acceptance and keeping life going in the face of all kinds of hardships (because honestly, the storylines are nothing we haven’t seen before), but because–and forgive the emotion here, but the emotion is really the point–GOD DAMN IT THOSE ARE PUERTO RICAN FLAGS UP THERE, and Dominican flags, and some Mexican and Cuban, and that’s Washington Heights, and it’s really Washington Heights, and that dude is starting the show by rapping, and it’s good rapping, really good rapping, really real rapping, and there’s a b-boy, and a real b-boy, and the Spanish fits, and no pare, sigue sigue is just, it’s just, god damn it, it’s perfect.  And we’re not gang members or drug dealers or even Lothario Latin lovers–we’re people, hard-working people who struggle with gentrification and self-worth issues and questions of leaving home and putting our pasts behind us to succeed or clutching madly to keep them close and push us even higher.

And I was in the audience on Mother’s Day, and this, I can’t stress this enough, this is what I want Latinos to do on Mother’s Day, I want them to go see In The Heights, all dressed up, full families, and I want them cheering when the lights go down, and I want them cheering and “oooooh”-ing when Nina and Benny kiss on the fire escape, and I want little Puerto Rican and Dominican boys to feel like Usnavi is looking right at them when he’s rhyming the way I felt like John Leguizamo’s Miggy was looking right at me all through Spic-o-Rama.  And you know what?  I’ve got tears in my eyes (just barely, son, just barely) even right now–right now–as I’m writing this.

And all that is still there in a big way, although I wasn’t overwhelmed with the emotion of the whole thing this time around, probably because I had seen it and was prepared (and maybe because I was trying to be cool in front of Kitt Kittredge, who I was with this time instead of my mom, in front of whom I have no need to look cool).  The pride is embedded in the piece, and I still think that’s the second biggest legacy this show will leave when all is said and done (the first being its incredible use of hip-hop within a full-on dramatic context–I’ll come back to this idea when talking about the break/s and Boom Bap Meditations later in the week/future).  But the thing I didn’t originally recognize about the show — the thing I actually got completely wrong the first time around — was this:

It’s a really good show.

I think I overvalued the impact that all those Puerto Rican flags had on my enjoyment the first time around.  I credited the show for a solid understanding of Broadway musical storytelling structure, but kind of downplayed the effectiveness of the story’s specifics.  I wasn’t even convinced that the songs (outside of the couple of big showstoppers) were entirely new, exciting, or hummable.  I was wrong on most, if not all counts.  It’s a good show, a strong show getting great performances that smooth over any trouble spots for sure, but it’s well put-together and (and I hate using this word) universal somehow — you don’t have to have firsthand knowledge of Puerto Ricans or Dominicans or hip-hop or The Heights to get it.  If you go with it, you’ll dig it.  You’ll probably love it.

(The problem of universality, we might have discussed before, is a major point of contention for many writers of color.  Our work, if it goes to “mainstream” audiences, is expected to “transcend race/ethnicity” so it can be consumed by the population at large.  In other words, your “average theatergoer” (I’m euphemismising away) needs to see/relate to your Puerto Rican characters as something other than (more than?) just Puerto Ricans — they need to be “real people.”  I think when I state it that way, “euphemisms” and all, it’s easy to see exactly what the problem with that “thinking” “is”.  Okay, those last two weren’t euphemisms at all.  I’ll talk more about this soon–specifically when we spend some time on those plays mentioned above.)

Point is, this show does the “universal” thing without compromise.  It tells a good, easy to follow story, and it tells it well, and it happens to tell it through cultural forms associated with young Latino folk.  That’s no small accomplishment.  it’s what I attempted to do with Welcome to Arroyo’s (and if any of you reading this haven’t read that play, it’s being published next year, so there’s your chance), only my story is a little messier and militant and maybe particular to one culture.  Lin-Manuel and Quiara and team have succeeded in not giving up the flavor while making the meat a little more tender and palatable for all-to-most tastes.  That’s a good thing.

That night, there was a couple sitting directly in front of us (and Britney Spears about ten rows up and over), and they were white, and they were older (maybe my parents’ age), and they were reacting semi-loudly throughout the show, trading thoughts back and forth in that “ooh, I’m enjoying this” kind of way.  It was good to see.

And how does this all tie to Rent?  Two things that I’ve mentioned here before:

1.  Spring Awakening, some say, is the logical heir to Rent’s fans, and I’d say that’s at least partially right.   But some of us, we kind of needed a show about young folks in New York City to come along and fill the void Rent is leaving behind.  We needed a multicultural show.  We needed a show that, for all its perceived toughness in form and music, is an old-fashioned musical at heart.  That’s Heights.

2.  At the Tonys, the original cast of Rent came out onstage and sang, and the audience applauded…but Lin-Manuel gave them the standing ovation they deserved, shortly after giving the coolest acceptance speech ever.  And it’s fitting, because as much as Rent’s artistic success is tied up in its creator’s backstory, so is Heights‘.  Historians are going to look back on this year’s ceremony and say “Paulo Szot?  Really?”

This is now my longest post ever, I think, so I’ll stop and sum up by repeating all I really wanted to say about this topic anyway:

Go see In The Heights.

PASSING STRANGE Announces Closing.

I just woke up from a little impromptu nap, and I check my e-mail, and I’ve got this message from my buddy and sometimes semi-idol Eisa Davis (links added by me):

so we’re closing with a bang, with the Spike Lee shoot.

thanks for taking this ride with us. if you haven’t caught it, hope you can get here before we close.

as Stew says in the show: is it alright?

and as I say back: yes, it’s alright.

eisa

www.passingstrangeonbroadway.com

This is sad, but not unpredictable news. Passing Strange never found its audience, struggling with a title and some marketing materials that didn’t really represent the show perfectly or highlight its strengths. It was also a tough sell on Broadway, a black rock musical that didn’t have an obvious hook for the suburban moms and tourists who make up your major ticket-purchasing block on the Rialto (look at me, getting my Variety on). The Tony Awards seemed to be the show’s big chance, but timing was a problem there, as In The Heights became sort of destined for Best Musical, and Lin-Manuel’s performance in that show may have split the Best Featured Actor vote with Stew (just a theory), leaving that award to Paulo Szot, not that I think anything other than Best Musical would have made a huge difference anyway. The fact that this show made it from Joe’s Pub to the Public to Broadway, and lasted as long as it did (185 performances including previews) qualifies as a huge success in my mind, even with the certain financial hit the producers have taken.

I was describing the show in an e-mail just now, and I said it was the most interesting “hip” young black show since Noise/Funk, and I was struck by the comparison–both were shows that came out of The Public, yeah, both were somewhat overshadowed and eclipsed by other shows that they were linked with in articles about the new cultural zeitgeist of their given time period (Heights now, Rent, of course, then), and both, from some kind of objective standard at least, were better shows then their counterparts. I say “objective standard” because Rent and Heights are two shows with great personal value to me, although I think both are kind of messy and not as consistently strong as the Public shows. The other thing with that is that both Strange and Noise/Funk are untraditional musicals at heart, turning away from what a regular Broadway show tends to do, and ultimately, that’s the commercial downfall of these pieces. But these aren’t commercial shows–just shows that happened to have some success commercially (and certainly did better critically than commercially, especially Strange).

Screenwriter William Goldman has said that he is amazed that a good movie ever gets made in the Hollywood system, because there is so much that could go wrong at any given moment. I tend to think the same thing about great Broadway shows–the odds are against a production going really well, against a show capturing some kind of great moment or aesthetic or thought and making it all the way to the Great White Way with its integrity and heart still attached. There are just too many places where it could go wrong. Passing Strange got almost everything right; the downfall, sadly, was in the most critical area for keeping the show running: the audience.

But still, I celebrate this show, this cast, this creative team, this man named Stew. If you have a chance, go see this show this week. (If you want to buy your favorite blogger a ticket to the Spike Lee shows or even the closing, I wouldn’t turn them down.) You’ll have to film version of this to remember it by, but you’re going to want to have the actual memory too.

Let’s Talk About The Tonys.

The Tony Awards snuck up on me this year.  If I had planned ahead, I would have done a whole week of pre-award analysis, but I’m late, so I’ll bang this stuff out now, then comment again Monday after everything is announced.  The Times has their predictions up, so I’ll riff off that as I do my own.

Musical: I’ve got this sinking, stinking suspicion that Xanadu is going to steal this away from In The Heights and Passing Strange, which happen to be the two most exciting, most important Broadway shows of the last who knows how long.  But both of those shows happen to be young and Brown, and while I don’t think that those are exactly problems for voters, I do think there’s a possibility–more than a possibility–of them canceling each other out, sending the vote to the silly, fun film adaptation that a lot of people really enjoyed.  I haven’t seen Xanadu, but it’s clearly the safer show–and I hope it doesn’t win.  Heights seems the likely juggernaut, but I think Strange was the best show I saw this year, and certainly could use the ticket boost that the Tony would bring.  As long as we’re looking at one of the two, I’ll be happy.

Heights should win best score, if only for numbers like 96,000, which might be the coolest example of melding hip-hop and Broadway that you’re ever gonna get.  My mom thinks they should perform that song on the Tony broadcast, and I agree–it’s something that starts out like nothing on Broadway, then becomes exactly what you expect from Broadway, but with a ton of musical sounds that are still like nothing you’d expect from Broadway.  Strange has a great score too, and is probably more consistent all the way through, but Heights is unabashedly a Broadway show (for better or worse), and that’s what the Tonys should celebrate.

And I’ll say this much: If Lin-Manuel Miranda doesn’t win for Leading Actor, there is no justice in the world.  He’s giving a truly groundbreaking performance in that show, one that people will be studying for the rest of Broadway history.

Plays: I haven’t seen any of the plays this year, but I kind of don’t need to–August: Osage County has everything locked up.

Revivials: I saw Gypsy and Sunday in the Park with George, didn’t love either one, and I’m not sure I’d have loved South Pacific if I had seen it either.  Lupone is a lock for Lead Actress though, and I think South Pacific is almost a lock for the big prize.

And you know what–I’m stopping here, because I realize that I only care about the two musicals in this race, and I hope to hell that voters look at them as two completely different shows that share an energy that Broadway desperately needs right now: young people of color with understandings of popular music and a respect for Broadway traditions but a willingness to shatter them when needed. 

Passing Strange spoke to me like few things speak to me on stage–the story of a young artist, confused, not sure where to fit in, not able to stand in a safe straightforward upbringing, and that’s a simple story that we’ve heard a million times, but this is complicated by race, and class, and religion, and a need to do things exactly your own way, to fail and fall hard in hopes of finding new ways to climb.  It possesses an incredible beautiful cast of incredibly beautiful people of color, and it’s not about race at all, but race is infused in every second of it, and it’s race the way race really is–complicated, invisible, impossible to avoid.  In another year, this would be the hands-down favorite thing I saw, and it’s close even this year.

In The Heights made me cry, and made me cry repeatedly (well, not cry, but tears in my eyes intermittently from the moment the music started), not because of the touching stories of love and acceptance and keeping life going in the face of all kinds of hardships (because honestly, the storylines are nothing we haven’t seen before), but because–and forgive the emotion here, but the emotion is really the point–GOD DAMN IT THOSE ARE PUERTO RICAN FLAGS UP THERE, and Dominican flags, and some Mexican and Cuban, and that’s Washington Heights, and it’s really Washington Heights, and that dude is starting the show by rapping, and it’s good rapping, really good rapping, really real rapping, and there’s a b-boy, and a real b-boy, and the Spanish fits, and no pare, sigue sigue is just, it’s just, god damn it, it’s perfect.  And we’re not gang members or drug dealers or even Lothario Latin lovers–we’re people, hard-working people who struggle with gentrification and self-worth issues and questions of leaving home and putting our pasts behind us to succeed or clutching madly to keep them close and push us even higher.

And I was in the audience on Mother’s Day, and this, I can’t stress this enough, this is what I want Latinos to do on Mother’s Day, I want them to go see In The Heights, all dressed up, full families, and I want them cheering when the lights go down, and I want them cheering and “oooooh”-ing when Nina and Benny kiss on the fire escape, and I want little Puerto Rican and Dominican boys to feel like Usnavi is looking right at them when he’s rhyming the way I felt like John Leguizamo’s Miggy was looking right at me all through Spic-o-Rama.  And you know what?  I’ve got tears in my eyes (just barely, son, just barely) even right now–right now–as I’m writing this.

Damn.  That wasn’t my plan for this at all.

Anyway.  Tonys.  Sunday night.  To say there’s a little bit riding on this year’s awards is an understatement.