9 Works Theatrical’s production of ‘Rent’
BY ROME JORGE Lifestyle Editor

The late Jonathan Larson’s Rent, the turn-of-the-millennium musicale inspired by Giacomo Puccini’s 19th century opera La Bohéme, is arguable the most beloved theater work of today’s generation. Its songs are the anthem of today’s youth. Its characters mirror today’s artsy bohémians, its story is their fictionalized biography and its struggle is their own.

So beloved is Rent that 9 Works Theatrical’s current production—directed by veteran actor Robbie Guevara and currently running at the Carlos P. Romulo auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City—is already the third restaging in the Philippines.

Today’s anthem
Today’s independent artists sing along to the musicale’s “La Vie Bohème” as they cope with keeping afloat their hole-in-the-wall art galleries, performance spaces, movie productions, comic book publications, cafes, bars and fashion boutiques amid commercialization and recession.

And when they try to explain to their parents and to the rest of the world why they are different—be they gay, lesbian, anarchists or just artistic—they identify with Rent characters like philosophy professor and anarchist Tom Collins and his lover Angel, drag queen percussionist Dumott Schunard, independent filmmaker Mark Cohen and his songwriting roommate and buddy Roger Davis.

To those who see themselves as damaged goods—the brilliant products of today’s dysfunctional times—they identify with the self-destructiveness of exotic dancer and junkie Mimi Márquez or the unapologetically polyamorous bisexual performance artist Maureen Johnson.

And when the day comes for their lives to end, today’s generation hopes someone will sing the play’s heart-rending anthem “Seasons of Love” for its requiem.

The current cast of Rent— Nicole Asensio as Mimi Márquez, Gian Magdangal as Roger Davis, Fredison Lo as Mark Cohen, OJ Mariano as Tom Collins, Carla Guevara Laforteza as Maureen Johnson, Noel Rayos as Benjamin “Benny” Coffin 3rd, Job Bautista as Angel Dumott Schunard, Jenny Villegas as Joanne Jefferson, and Cara Barredo as Mimi Marquez—all confess to being fans of the musicale. Many expressed playing their “dream role.”

A hopefully foreign experience
But Rent also captures a historic experience that, hopefully, is unique to the play’s milieu—the East Village community during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. Few in the Philippines today can imagine the experience of an art community that saw its ranks decimated by a dreaded disease. In just a span of a few years, the community lost so many luminaries and friends: Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe, to name but a few.

Also, few among the play’s affluent patrons and actors in the Philippines have experienced being a squatter, a struggling street performer living off the street or a junkie having to prostitute herself for the next fix. Larson himself and his roommates lived in squalid conditions with little money before the advent of fame and recognition—two posthumous Tony Awards and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama Rent.

Walk the walk
For the cast and director of Rent, the challenge is to sing and act their parts not as gleeful fans, but as squatters struggling for their artistry and doomed AIDS victims agonizing with their mortality. Did they act the part or simply belt it out?

To their credit, the cast not only sings their songs, they tell their stories and enact their parts as they fill the theater with music.

Their performances are not only nearly flawless, their singing is emphatic. Asensio’s performances are riveting in particular.

However, one can’t help but feel at times that they are singing as fans and not as the characters. This is especially true for the chorus.

The play is most definitely a must see. But it doesn’t help that scenes not so much as transition from one to the other as much they collide, leaving little room for discernment.

This brings up another criterion for the play’s success: can the play be appreciated by those not familiar with its story and music?

At the premier, the children of the 1990s, now in their thirties, filled the seats. Many had seen previous stagings as well as the 2005 film. They know the story by heart and repress the urge to sing along. But the true judges of this musicale are the young people who are now only experiencing Rent for the first time.

Hannah Gregorio, an 18-year-old student at the Manila Times College, comments: “I might have been a baby when Rent was first staged, but watching it for the first time and finding out the reason behind the song “Seasons of Love,” I immediately fell in love with Rent. The story of Rent actually goes well with the present situation of my generation—except the AIDS part. The chasing your dreams and going astray [from the path you’d like to pursue] is something I believe that each individual of my generation could easily relate to.”

Show dates are February 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8 p.m., Saturdays
at 3:30 p.m. and Sundays at 4:30 p.m. at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Ayala Corner Sen. Gil Puyat Avenues, Makati City.

For tickets, call 9 Works Theatrical at 557-5860 or visit www.9workstheatrical.com or call TicketWorld at 891-9999 or visit www.ticketworld.com.ph.

Rent is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI) 421 West 54th Street, New York, New York 10019 Tel.: (212) 541-4684 • www.mtishows.com