RENT's due.
As corny as it may be, Jonathan Larson's pulitzer prize winning musical RENT has always deeply moved me . I've always been amazed that a show like this actually made it to Broadway. Never in the history of (mainstream) American musical theater has there been a production that so beautifully aestheticizes the pain and drama of being queer, of color, and living with AIDS in New York City. Needless to say, its not exactly your typical Disney-prone Broadway theater.
The show articulates a powerful coalitional politics of queer relationality (a heterosexual Latina woman, a femme queen of color, a straight white man--all infected/affected by AIDS) that somehow doesnt end up being a simple gesture towards humanism.
The months of November and December always remind me of RENT the most. This is probably because it was roughly around this time nine years ago (as a wide-eyed, Manhattan-bound high schooler in urban New Jersey) that I first fell in love with the show. And of course much of the show itself is set during the "christmas season," so I'm sure this has something to do with it.
Whatever the case may be, in spite of last year's awful filmic adaptation, I'm still an eternal and nostalgic RENT "fan."
Have you seen the show? Surely you have. See it again. On Broadway.
id go see this again just to see that Justin Johnston
Posted by
C. Baptiste-Williams |
11/25/2007
I loved Rent. I see it at least once a year.
Posted by
Mr. Jones |
11/26/2007