"La Boheme and Moulin Rouge are alike because they were directed by the same director."
In the same way that Catch Me If You Can is like Saving Private Ryan.
Namo, Vicious Circle actually refers to the Algonquin Round Table (which nurtured the likes of Dorothy Parker). I myself prefer the Italian version of Rent, where I hear they reference such great Italian rock stars as Enrico Caruso.
Sueleen, I have a cabinet full of red wine, pink wine and white wine, and I think half a bottle of Bacardi. Mi cabinet es Sue cabinet.
VC, I knew that! Really! In fact, some of us are at the roundtable here... and some of us, well, aren't. It just gave me a nice opening to reference the Sex Pistols and La Vie Boheme!
I LOVE the Italian RENT but the normal language RENT Mimi has much better blue vinyl pants.
I love Rent. It's a really amazing show. The music is great, as well as the book. I think everyone can relate to the characters. You could relate to Mark- always looking in on the outside but never really involved, or Collins- when someone very special to you passed away...it's kind of a universal show about a group of friends told by awesome music.
I should have known you knew that, Namo, my apologies for not hitting the undermine button off (four years of high school will do that to a girl). Perhaps they should remake Moonstruck so that when Nick Cage takes Cher to the opera, their Mimi is wearing blue vinyl pants as well. And then they could play "Contact" in the scene after Nick says "Now I want you to come upstairs with me and.... and GET in my bed!"
Of course, then you would miss the classic dialogue after the opera: "That was awful...." "Awful?" "Beautiful.... She dies at the end" "Yeah" "I didn't think she was gonna die" "She had TB" "I know. I mean, she was coughing her brains out and still she had to keep singing!"
I think that if one has dealt with the dealings of the show it is very powerful... It is now like HAIR in the sense that it will forever be a sign of the times. For being somoene who is HIV+ myself it was a very hard show to watch at different times. The fear and the horror one still must face in the eyes of this killer is not like a broadway musical (if only it was, mine would have Collin Farrell as my love interest even if he couldn't sing)...but at least for two hours we can see it as one and be moved. Music stirs the soul and if you have a soul that is affected or infected with AIDS then you understand what i am talking about.
BOJ, I remember feeling that power when RENT first opened and later on the first leg of the first tour, (with Simone and the late Carrie Hamilton). The show opened on B'way just as things were changing for people with treatment options and folks' survival began to really lengthen, so in a sense, it was a bit frozen in its time even at the beginning.
Last time I saw it, the last leg of the last Equity tour, it was pretty much devoid of power. Really tired, really run down, and featuring a lot of fairly limp performers people get all ga-ga about on this board. And I hope the show still has some power, but at this point I bet it's like looking at at 5th generation xerox, a copy of a copy of a copy. It would seem that most of the connection people feel with the show is a cult of personality about the actors. I understand why that sprung up with the original cast, they had been through a traumatic experience and dedicated their performances to the late, lamented creator of the show... but to get all googly about the 78th Toby Britten Parker replacement???
I do agree with you that after a while people get a little obsessed. It seems that the replacements are just copies of the original. Sometimes it is neat to buck the casting trend.
FindingNamo and BoxOfficeJon, I agree whole-heartedly with the whole casting thing. I myself find that if I auditioned for the role of MiMi, I wouldn't get it because I don't have a huge head of curls or the ability to were blue vinyl pants (scary thought...). It's time the spice it up a little. Nothing can top the original cast, but really, make some casting changes and let other people have a chance.
"The stage is where I live and come alive and act out all the things that go on in my life. It's not just what I do for a living, it's my shrink and my love affair. No one in my life has ever or ever will kiss me on the mouth like this lover called my relationship with my performance."
Personally, I think it had the potential to be a really good show. I would never think of it as GREAT show, because basically that music isn't my thing. But when I saw the show, I saw a show with potential, but it has flaws, plenty of them. Some people liek that, but when I see a show I enjoy it, or I don't. Sure I enjoyed RENT, but not half as much as any other production I saw on Broadway. I think it was just kinda messy, if that's a good way to put it. Maybe it had something to do with Jonathon Larson passing away before previews. I'm thinking that event caused them to hesitate when it came to changing things around, and the things that needed to be changed, just simply were not changed. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the show. And there were some really great scenes, but the show as a whole was by no means great. The message the show was trying to give off, however is great.