Jonathan Larson and "Rent'

I attended the closing Broadway performance of Rent as it was transmitted in High Definition to movie theaters in late September, and I’m feeling sad.

Not because Rent closed after a 12-year run. Closings are inevitable, and often they’re a time for celebration, not mourning.

Rather, because the show was the almost-autobiographical story of a composer who didn’t live to see its premiere, let alone its phenomenal success. Rent won a Pulitzer Prize, several Tony Awards, inspired a young generation of theatergoers, succeeded on world-wide stages and on the movie screen— and Jonathan Larson didn’t get to see any of this. Nor did he get to follow up with any further work. He died in 1995 of a misdiagnosed aortic aneurysm, at the age of 35.

Some critics have found flaws in Rent, or they’ve said that it’s not as musically rich as La Bohème, but that’s nit-picking. Rent was Larson’s first full-scale show. Imagine if Puccini had died after composing only Edgar, his first opera. Or even after Manon Lescaut, his first big hit, which came three years before La Bohème.

Little is known about Larson because he never became sufficiently famous to be interviewed (except for a conversation with Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times the night before Larson died). I didn’t know Larson myself, bit I consider myself lucky to have known some of his close friends, including his lover and later good friend, Victoria Leacock.

A grungy place downtown

After Jonathan graduated from Adelphi University in the early ‘80s, Victoria dropped out of college and they moved into a grungy place downtown that resembled the subsequent setting of Rent. Six people shared one apartment and washed their clothes in the kitchen sink for lack of an electric washer or dryer. What we see in Rent is the life that Jon and Victoria and their friends shared.

Of the six roommates, four— all but Jonathan and Victoria—contracted HIV and three died of it. That’s a tragedy in more ways than one: Many fans of Rent erroneously think Larson died of AIDS. As Larson’s friends became ill, he felt that he should write something with a larger scope that addressed drugs and AIDS. That’s when he turned his attention to what became Rent– a musical based on La Bohème, set in the East Village.

To be sure, Rent lacks the gorgeousness of La Bohème’s music. But Rent has the stronger story, I believe. Instead of Mimi wasting away from tuberculosis, Larson presents a more conflicted history of a woman hooked on drugs who is unable to control her addiction. The one dramatic flaw in Rent is that much of the story is told to us instead of shown on stage. That’s why I love the movie version— because the action is made visible.

Political passions

The other thing that depresses me about Larson’s untimely death is that he was so intensely involved in economic and political issues. As a drama student at Adelphi University in 1980, Larson wrote a cabaret play about women’s issues called Herstory, or Little Miss Muffet Spat On Her Tuffet. Three years after graduating, Larson wrote a play called Prostate of the Union, or The Evils of Ronald Reagan’s America, which was performed in 1987. His political passions also found an outlet in a 1989 satirical musical called Presidential Politics; and in 1995 Jonathan wrote music for J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation, "a post-modern musical comedy allegory about capitalism," which was performed at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets in Manhattan’s financial district.

It’s a shame he’s not around to watch Wall Street’s chickens come home to roost. Consiering what he did with Rent, God knows what Larson could have made of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hank Paulson, Sarah Palin et al.♦


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