Passionate RENT Sensation

RENT is absolutely astounding!

It’s a rare production that pushes all the right buttons and bangs all the drums, and succeeds in such an engaging way.  Director Scott Andrew and his committed cast, with Al Warren’s magnificent band, have nailed the complications of this sophisticated rock musical and its complex characters, with passion and aplomb.

The set perfectly enhances the piece, and allows maximum movement on the Abbey’s constricting stage, with scaffolding and levels, appropriate lighting, and a formidable pile of industrial sculpture climbing up the rear corner of the stage.

Based loosely on Puccini’s La Boheme (there’s a bunch of HIV positive, junkie, arty types freezing their butts off in an industrial loft, and one of them is called Mimi), RENT is Jonathan Larson’s answer to those who regard musical theatre as effete and irrelevant.  He wrote a gritty grungy piece about people living on the edge, coping with poverty, rejection, personal crises, addiction, different sexual orientation, illness, politics and the temptations of success.

Far from being depressing, the show and its musical are an inspiring look at life, love, friendship, community and humanity in the face of adversity.  Director Andrew himself takes a part as Benny, a former flatmate who is now the loft’s landlord, fully compromised by the outside world.  As homosexual philosophy professor Tom Collins, Richard Rewa plays the superbly realised role of his life.  He is abetted by Liam Taylor’s Angel, who embellishes the role with a genuine note of ungainliness.  Edan Hunt as junkie Mimi, is both spectacular and fragile, delivered with crystal clear vocals.

The pairing of dynamic Renee Pink as bisexual performance artist Maureen with Janine Bonny’s lesbian lawyer Joanne provide one of the song highlights in Take Me Or Leave Me.  Anchor characters film-maker Mark and musician Roger, played by Phillip Gurney and Richard Scott, do well making their doubts and personal baggage believable.

The characters may be misfits with adverse personalities, hang-ups, fetishes and diseases, but these performers in this production make sure we care about them.  RENT, with its double meaning of payment and tearing apart, is a beautifully realised production.