Such an extraordinary production! In the lead roles, wildly talented performers —most of whom I’ve never seen before. Such strength and depth in the ensemble. Everybody on the Metro Theatre stage is givin’ ‘er — and they have the chops to deliver. Just wait till you hear the wall of sound they can produce together.
I admit that I’m biased in favour of the material. When I first heard the CD of the Broadway cast recording in 1996, I wept at the duet “Light My Candle” because its syncopated rhythms are so cool and the lyrics so witty. Now, just the first notes of the score make me tear up — because I know what’s coming.
Created by Jonathan Larson, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics, Rent is an exploration of young-adult friendships in New York’s Alphabet City at the end of the millennium. The central characters, roommates Mark and Roger, have been living rent-free in an abandoned building owned by their former pal, Benny, who married into wealth. Breaking his promise to Mark and Roger, Benny now wants them to pay a year’s worth of back rent.
But that’s just the framing device for a celebration of rebellion, chosen family, and love. The stakes are high: in the early nineties, AIDS is running through the bloodstream of this community. Roger, a recovering drug user, is HIV-positive, and so is his exotic-dancer girlfriend Mimi, who’s still actively using. Mark and Roger’s pal Tom Collins, who teaches computer-age philosophy, is also positive, as is his drag-queen boyfriend, Angel.
The queerness doesn’t end there. Mark’s former girlfriend Maureen is now with a woman named Joanne. (In the duet, “Tango Maureen”, Mark and Joanne commiserate about how evasive Maureen can be.)
So two of the three romances are queer and four of the seven featured characters are coping with HIV/AIDS, a death sentence at that time.
That’s period-specific, but, as proven emphatically by the commitment this cast is bringing to this production, Rent is not past its best-before date. An HIV-positive diagnosis no longer means game over, praise Science! But queer rights are, appallingly, under attack once again, including in the US and US outposts including Alberta and parts of Ontario. This is all in the context of a broader backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion.
But Rent stands in defiance of all that. As well as the queer love, there’s racial solidarity: every Rent cast I’ve seen has been racially diverse and this one’s no exception. Rent is about that the period in our early twenties when we’re making up our adult selves — and we have the opportunity to make those selves generous. Within that context, in 2025, AIDS becomes a metaphor for the preciousness of that fleeting period and the importance of cherishing the human connections we make then.
Back to the production.
For singers, the music is ridiculously demanding. The role of Roger requires a vocalist with the capacity of Robert Plant and, in this production, Laren Steppler delivers, floating — and wailing — ridiculously high notes and negotiating tricky intervals without losing his pitch or sounding forced. As an actor, he’s nicely raw and understated: authentic.
And Pier Francesco Marchi could be cast in any production anywhere as Mark. (Have I mentioned that this is an almost completely non-Equity cast?) Marchii looks the part, he’s vocally flawless, and he brings an abundance of the requisite humour and thoughtfulness.
I loved Nicole Laurent’s Mimi the moment she set foot onstage and flirted the pants off Roger — almost literally. Laurent is a witty, sexy performer, a showgirl who also slips effortlessly into the emotional depths of the musical’s later going.
Tom Collins — or Collins as he is called — is one of my favourite characters, a tender Daddy of a man. And Vicente Sandoval, who’s playing Collins here, possesses my favourite voice in this production, in terms of texture: so easy, warm, dark, and rich. The duet “I’ll Cover You”, which Sandoval’s Collins shares with Kurtis D’Aoust’s Angel killed me: such a lyrical, reassuring declaration of love.
D’Aoust’s Angel is everything you could want from the character, starting with the innocence.
The only difficulty I had with casting was over in Lesboland. Paula Higgins knows exactly what she’s doing with Maureen, straddling the ridiculousness of the character’s performance art, her narcissism, and her fundamental decency. But Mary Cleaver is miscast as Joanne. Cleaver sings reasonably well, but she’s at least as old as the actors playing her parents and it’s distracting.
I have plenty more praise to heap. Choreographer Shelley Stewart Hunt does a terrific job, not just of the obvious “numbers”, which she often makes seductively swivel-y, and shoulder-jivey, but also the more detailed elements — the hand gestures in “La Vie Bohème”, for instance, and the rhythmic punctuations, the musical reactions, that pop up in the ensemble, even when they’ve been still for a while.
That ensemble sounds great. Under Sylvia M. Zaradic’s musical direction, the harmonies are thick and delicious. And the members of the company are so committed to what they’re doing, to their individual character tracks, that you can let your eyes rest on any of them and you’ll be satisfied.
This all speaks to the strength of Shel Piercy’s direction. This production is firing so strongly because he has cast so well, been so creative and detailed in his choices, and, I’d be willing to bet, created such a strong company culture. This production works spectacularly because everybody in it seems to be having the time of their life.
Rent is almost completely sung-through, which means that every production is built on the foundation of the orchestra — in this case, five terrific players: Sean Bayntun, Mark Richardson, Jane Milliken, Boyd Grealy, and Monica Sumulong Dumas.
I can’t shut up before I mention the dramatic variety of Jonathan Kim’s lighting and the overall excellence of Starlynn Chen’s costumes. If Mimi’s stripper-ware is available to rent after the show closes, I’d like to know the rates, please.
I love Rent, the musical. Over and over again, this production moved me to tears.
RENT Book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson. Directed by Shel Piercy. A Metro Theare production. At the Metro Theatre until September 20. Tickets and information
PHOTO CREDIT: (Photo of Laren Steppler and Nicole Laurent by Matt Reznek. Costumes by Starlynn Chen)
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