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September 5-11, 2002 artpicks Rent
My generation had Hair; the 18 to 20-somethings have Rent. That is, a show that sweeps away the fusty, bourgeois reputation clinging to Broadway musicals and makes the form seem cool. Pierced and tattooed clubbers, who would sooner have died than let their grandparents take them to a Beauty and the Beast matinee, were all over, spending the night on a midtown street to scarf up Rent tickets. The irony here is that nothing could be more canonical than Rent, which as nearly everyone knows is based on La Boheme. Here too is a love story (Mimi and Roger) set against an unfeeling Establishment. If the rock-flavored score and some details (gay characters, AIDS) are topical, the theme is timelessly sentimental. And the pangs of Rent's plot are nothing compared to its back-story -- the death (from an aortic aneurysm) of its young creator, Jonathan Larson, just hours before the show's opening. Truth to tell, Rent betrays some callowness, but it also has the virtues of youth: freshness, charm and an indefatigable sense of hope. Bigger hits have come to Broadway since, but nothing has yet replaced its role as the show for a younger generation. Rent is back again, this time for six performances at the Mann Center. Perhaps it is mere coincidence that it arrives just days before Sept. 11, but it's also apt -- how cheering to celebrate, in a very different way, the heroic spirit of downtown New York. Rent, Sept. 5-8, $35.50-$60.50, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, 52nd and Parkside, 215-893-1999.
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