RENT

This year, I hardly celebrated April 29th, RENT’s Broadway birthday. I didn’t have time to something big; that was my excuse. But I did have time. And I could have.
So why didn’t I?
Recently, I’ve become sort of scared. My RENThead identity—the part of me that lived this show, knew this show, loved this show—has started to feeling paler and smaller, like it’s fading. I know what the rational thing to say it: I’m growing up, moving on. RENT was an obsession that lasted for a few years, nothing more, nothing less. It made me happy, made me smile, but now I go on to bigger and better things.
I write these words, and I hate them.
It’s true; I have a lot of mini-obsessions that last for a month or so. Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Avatar, Lost…they all capture me, and then they let me go. Before RENT, I loved Phantom, Wicked, Pocahontas. They lasted maybe five or six months each.
RENT has lasted for almost four years.
That’s pretty short, I know. There are RENTheads who have loved the show for more than a decade. But for me, the girl from Cambridge who stumbled across a musical that shaped her and changed her into a different person, a new person…for me, four years isn’t short. For me, four years is an eternity.
I listen to a song by Jonathan Larson every night before I go to sleep. Even if I want to listen to other songs, even if I want something else, the last music I hear is written by Jonathan Larson.
I still have all my RENT stuff on a special shelf in my bookcase. I also have RENT pictures and playbills on my walls and in picture frames.
I’m going to see the RENT tour three times this summer.
It’s been a while since my last big RENT extravaganza. The reason for this—the real reason—is that I don’t want the emotional upheaval. The feelings of sadness and regret that I feel when I realize how long it’s been since RENT was new, how much I’ve missed over the years. The feelings of love and pain when I watch the original Broadway cast, who I’ve felt so close to and who I can never talk to or get to know. The feelings of intensity, spreading through my veins like air being pumped into a tire. The whole thing leaves me drained and sad.
RENT doesn’t make me sad. I do that to myself. RENT makes me so happy. And I love it.
It’s like a friend who you’re close to: really close, closer than anyone else. You know everything about them: their secrets, their embarrassments, their quirks, their beauties. You know them as well as you know yourself.
Sooner or later, it all becomes settled, like sediment at the bottom of a pond. You can’t find the thrill of discovering new stuff, because you know it all. Even though you love this friend, depend on them, need them, you begin to drift away.
My connections with the original Broadway cast feel different now, less personal. My connections with the songs are soft, sweet, not as fiery as before. I feel like I’m slipping away, losing contact, turning down the volume…
And then I crack open my RENT bible, turn on Finale B, and bawl my eyes out.
It’s gone too deep. It’s affected me too much. I can forget the lyrics, forget the characters, forget the amazing, beautiful story, and it’ll still be with me. I can tighten my shoulders, clench my jaw ‘til I frown, let go…and not drown. RENT is holding me up, understanding me and guiding me like the light at the end of the tunnel.
My Jesse is still my Jesse. My Wilson and Idina and Taye and Anthony and Adam and Daphne and Fredi and Gwen and Byron and Aiko and Kristen and Gilles and Toby and Rodney…I still know their names. I still know their faces. And in a single second, I can pull them close to my heart and feel the pulse of life within a show they created years ago.
I haven’t seen the show in ages. When it went off Broadway, something died a little. The magic of knowing it was always there, a distant loved one tethering me to a past long lost…it faded when the Nederlander went dark. But god, I will never know anything so wonderful as the feelings it gives me. I will never find new characters that touch me so deeply and become so dear to me. I will never lose this. Because it’s hidden inside me, somewhere that nothing can touch it.
I love RENT. I know now I always will. And if being whiny and unappreciative and preachy is what it took to realize that, it’s worth it. It’s all worth it.
Thank you, Jonathan Larson. Thank you so much.