Review: RENT: A standing ovation for the man who never got to take a bow

There is no curtain separating the audience from the stage in Rent at the newly christened Tom Stoppard Theatre, formerly the Duke of York’s. But had there been one, they would have to keep on raising it, because this cast and its musicians deserve to feel the love and appreciation. Old as I am, I’ve only ever seen the film version of Rent which I enjoyed, but this production of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is so brilliantly staged, so involving and so spectacularly sung – it felt unfamiliar in the very best way. 

The singing is mind-blowing. There are voices here that make you wonder whether the performers themselves realise how good they sound – and in particular Billy Nevers who plays Tom Collins. There is something almost spiritual about the sound he produces, and when his voice combines with that of Starlight Express star Jeevan Braich who plays his lover Angel, the effect is otherworldly.

I had already experienced the Nevers effect when I saw him in Jesus Christ Superstar, where he made the hairs on my arms stand up. Interestingly, sitting in the audience at Rent was the über-talented Sam Ryder, enjoying a break before Jesus Christ Superstar opens at Drury Lane. We got talking in the interval about Nevers and found ourselves united in admiration for his gift. The sort of natural conversation you can have with the man about to return as the Son of God.

Set in New York’s East Village and the then dodgy Alphabet City , Rent takes place at the end of the 1980s and follows a group of young artists, musicians and outsiders trying to survive poverty, addiction, complicated relationships and the AIDS epidemic. Inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, Larson’s musical is really about people who have very little except an enormous capacity to love, create and hope for the future. All of the characters are lost, but Mark Cohen less so – and he is Jewish – as was Larson.

Played superbly by Gaten Matarazzo, familiar to millions from Stranger Things, Mark is a filmmaker documenting the lives of his friends, some of whom live with him or drop by a lot. Mark prefers observing their dramas through his camera rather than confronting his own and there’s a lot to document as his friend, musician Roger( Travis Ross ) is HIV positive and  mourning his girlfriend; Mimi (Alexa Lopez) is so sexy and on drugs and his ex, flirty Maureen (Lazy Violet) steals every scene and all the more so when she joins vocal forces with her lesbian lover Joanne (Danielle Fiamanya). While I’ll never get enough of Nevers, he is part of an exceptionally talented company.

There are lots of Jewishisms in the show which feels good and particularly so in the number involving the mothers of the principal characters, leaving anxious messages for their children. There is something about the combination of maternal concern and interference that could only have come from a man who knew and loved his Jewish mother. Larson clearly understood that however unconventional your life, your mother will still want to know why you haven’t called. Not every song in Rent is perfect, and there are moments when they are more determined to make a point than produce a melody. But when Larson gets it right, he gets it spectacularly right. Seasons of Love, with its 525,600 minutes measuring a year in a life, is one of the great musical theatre anthems and Take Me or Leave Me — Maureen’s fiery duet with Joanne is a gift to any female performer with the confidence and talent to seize it.

Listening to Larson’s lyrics, 30 years after the musical first appeared, is  a painful reminder of what was lost when he died so young at just 35, when he suffered an aortic dissection. That was on 25 January 1996, the morning of Rent’s first scheduled Off-Broadway preview. He never saw the musical open, never experienced the standing ovations and never got to hold the four Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prize that followed. Just thinking of the musicals he never got to write is heart breaking.

There is another remarkable talent behind this production – Luke Sheppard -who demonstrated his directorial brilliance on the practically perfect Paddington The Musical and has done it again with a work that could hardly be more different. Huge cheers go to David Woodhead for his set design, Tom Jackson Greaves for the choreography and beers all round for the musicians who are integral to the experience. As I said before last week I had only ever seen Rent on film, but I would happily have rewound this show and watched it again. I just wish Jonathan Larson had been there. To hear the cheering, see the audience standing and to know what his work means to people three decades after he wrote it.

RENT at the Tom Stoppard until May 2027 https://rentthemusical.com/