Rent: Tom Collins: "A Quiet Sort of Revolutionary"
TITLE: A Quiet Sort of Revolutionary
AUTHOR: me/eudaimon
CHARACTER: (Thomas B) Collins.
FANDOM: Rent.
SPOILERS: Total.
A/N: I've totally swapped between movie canon and musical canon without flagging it up. As dear Bill said, 'never apologise, never explain'. Songs for download are taken from the Rent OST (2005) and the Rent10 OBC performance bootleg (2006). Many thanks to orlanstamos, who's the friend with the Theory of Actual Reality. She's cleverer than I am.
do you know the way
to santa fe?
you know
tumbleweeds
& prarie dawgs...
A film-maker, a failed rockstar, a dancer, a musician, a performance artist; Rent is full of motherfucking artists. The artists are well and good, but their focus is narrow; I can’t help but think that if Rent had been a play solely about artists, not quite as many people would claim that the play changed their lives. Could it possibly have the same appeal if it revolved solely around Roger and Mimi and Mark and Maureen? Thankfully, Larson was clever enough and skilled enough to widen the field, and we do have variety in the form of a long suffering lesbian lawyer and a certain vagabond anarchist who blows back into town on Christmas Eve.
Enter Tom Collins.
Friends call me Collins, Tom Collins…nice tree. Collins makes his return to NYC on Christmas Eve[1]; he’s been an MIT, we find out later which makes sense; he looks like a cross between a vagrant and a grad-student, ever present beanie and layered ugly shirts. He’s handsome. He smiles a lot. He doesn’t have keys for the loft; either he hasn’t lived there in a while or he can’t be trusted with keys. In this world, either could be plausible. ‘A wild night is now preordained’ says Mark and he isn’t wrong. Collins is attacked and drops the phone. We’ve barely met him; he’s had three lines on stage, two of them sung but he’s made us laugh and we’re rooting for him. We don’t want for him to die of head injuries in an alleyway. We really don’t. And he doesn’t, of course. Tom Collins has a guardian angel. No, not her. She’s coming later.
I’m going to skip over Angel and come back to her. She’s important enough to Collins. I want to focus, for a moment, on the exchange between Collins, Roger and Mark when he does finally make it up to the loft. This is when we find out that Collins has been away for seven months and that he was, in fact, kicked out of MIT, ‘expelled…for [his] theory of Actual Reality’. We also find out everything we’re ever going to know, more or less, about Collins’ back-story in one line from Mark - ‘computer genius, teacher, vagabond anarchist who ran naked through the Parthenon’. Apparently, Thomas B Collins is something of a computer-age Renaissance man. It is worthwhile to note that (in the movie version at least) Collins is wearing three completely different shirts, despite having had his stuff stolen. Keep that in your head.
Basically, at first glance, Collins is hard not to like. He fits easily into this group to whom we’ve already been introduced; we can see how he relates to Benny, Mark and Roger. We know that he’s intelligent and that he’s occasionally given to sarcasm (his reaction to Roger’s ‘oh, hi…’; “’oh, hi’? After seven months? This boy could use some Stoli!’ is illustrative). Collins is easy to like on first impressions and, perhaps as importantly, he’s not an artist. Good then. We can move on.
They expelled me for my theory of actual reality which I’ll soon impart to the couch potatoes at New York University. Collins is a thinker but, then again, he has a lot to think about. For at least some period of time in the seven months immediately preceding Christmas Eve, he’s spent time studying at MIT (in my head, it makes most sense if he was actually at MIT September-December, and was gone wandering for the summer. Mark describes him as a ‘vagabond anarchist’ after all and vagabonds wander). Whatever happened, Collins wasn’t at MIT for very long. One gets the feeling that Collins isn’t ever anywhere for very long.
Collins’ Theory of Actual Reality is something which fanon doesn’t actually attack very often (from what I’ve seen). People seem to content to let sleep dogs lie which is, probably, wise. In recent conversation, a friend and I came to the conclusion that Collins was probably on the skids at MIT before he blew up their computers; between us, we decided that Collins theory would probably have made waves at a college so proud of technological advancement. Between us, we sketched out a theory which basically comes down to the issue of Ideology. Forgive me for this, what follows; I have my degree in English Lit (mea cupla). Ideology comes down to the lies that you’re told by the people in power in order to keep you complacent. If virtual reality relies on perception then actual reality surely has to do with what you can touch, what you can literally experience…so Collins’ theory has to do with being FOR LIFE in all of its forms, be it streaking through monuments, living with disease and meeting the love of your life in an alleyway. If Collins loves computers it's because they can be dismantled; they don't have to be a filter for experience. The thing which Collins really loves is Life which is probably why he finds it so easy to fall for a person like Angel Dumott Schunard. It all comes down to Actual Reality and MIT just didn’t understand.
Fanon varies on this subject, but the general consensus seems to be that Collins was at MIT as a postgraduate, having attained an undergrad qualification elsewhere. Different people attribute different levels of importance to different bits of the back-story which Mark gives to Collins. I’ve seen him described as a ‘computer hacker’, ‘philosopher’, ‘professor’, ‘anarchist’. Most of the time, he seems to be little more than Angel’s lover. It’s more than that, though. He is. Collins is a deep thinker. He knows a lot of things which are only hinted at during the play. He talks about metaphysic puzzles and grading papers (academia), anything but Heidegger (Philosophy) and, in the Life Café, Angel talks about ‘his exploits as anarchist’, which speaks for itself. It is also important not to forget that, like Angel, Collins is HIV+. This is a necessary part of his character; like Angel, not like Roger, Collins is about life, despite his illness. He’s about living and moving and questioning and life. Santa Fe is the difference between Roger and Collins. It’s indicative of Collins’ desire to keep moving, to live with and despite his disease. Mostly, though, what we hear of him is loving Angel, but, in all fairness, she’s the context that we know him in and she defines him. Collins can be all of these things, and he is, but what he most obviously is, along with Angel, is the emotional heart of Rent. If Angel is like a force of nature than Collins is a Shakespearean everyman; you might want to know someone like Angel, but you’ve got more a chance of turning out like Collins, in the end.
Don't got much baggage to lay at your feet, but sweet kisses I've got to spare. Tom Collins, in terms of Rent, is not a creature that can be taken in isolation. You have to approach him as filtered through and by love. Meeting Angel is the completion of Collins’ first scene; yes, he’s going to be detained but not just by those blows to the head. The encounter is telling about both of them; Angel is kind and bursting with joy, Collins is at first bitter and sarcastic, then shy. In the interim, he’s almost lascivious; “but you missed a sleeve” feeds into “Angel…indeed” informs into “but my friends are waiting”. Collins blushes; Angel makes him blush. I’ve always wanted to ask Collins at what exact moment did he become aware of Angel as the love of his life? There are a lot of questions that I want to ask Collins about Angel; did they sleep together that first night? What did they eat for dinner? What did he think when he first saw her in drag? Collins’ sexuality is another term of fanon conjecture; is he gay, bi, or experimenting? I, personally, like to think of Collins’ sexuality as another fact of him being For Life, for every opportunity, for her. I like to think of Collins as open to possibility so, when Angel walks into his life carrying her pickle tub, he opens his arms and embraces her with his whole heart.
On the subject of Collins and Angel, there’s a quote from a Jesse. L. Martin interview that, to me, is the perfect explanation of Collins: "He first time you see him, he has never been in love before and people don’t know that but the truth of the matter is that is the way that the character was given to me when we were back in the initial workshop stage, he has never ever, ever been in love, he has had people that he loves around him but he has never been in love. So Angel comes along and she is the most vibrant thing that anybody has ever seen and the humble guy gets the vibrant one. I am very, very happy about that story line, I thought it was really, really beautiful that you don’t see Collins before the story happens but he is a particular shy guy and this woman, boy, man, thing comes in and literally changes his life and suddenly he is running around jumping on the subway, dancing on tables like it literally changes his life."
We don’t see much of Collins to illustrate this ‘particular shy guy’ that Jesse obviously knows so well but maybe that’s because he’s among friends. Mostly, it’s around Angel that we get a hint, and it’s a visual thing. She makes him blush, with her directness. Angel knows what he wants; I’m not convinced that, before Angel, Collins really did. It’s telling to watch their body language; in the scene in the loft after Today 4 U they’re almost a couple, touching and smiling and sharing a smoke. Collins is wearing three new shirts (remember this?). It’s nice to imagine Angel giving them to him (though they can’t be hers, witness the relative size difference between Martin and Heredia and anyway, they’re ugly). Collins and Angel seems to come out of nowhere; she asks him to move in with her within hours of meeting him, ostensibly because he has nowhere or nothing but maybe because that’s what happens when lighting strikes. Collins walks in embarrassed circles and kisses her in the street; in Mark’s words (about another couple entirely) it’s ‘a small, sweet kiss’. After that, they’re definitely a couple; they’re always touching. The scene with the riot after Maureen’s performance is perfect Angel and Collins; once they’ve decided to be together, they fight for it. The scenes of them clinging together after Angel starts to get sick are heartbreaking; suddenly, Collins looks so much bigger than Angel. He’s sitting on the bed in the hospital with his shoes off. He isn’t going to be moved.
There are a lot of gaps in Collins and Angel’s relationship; almost the entire of it, for example. In the NYTW version of the script (it’s missing from all later versions), there’s an answer phone message that announces they’ve gone to steal an air-conditioner and will be back later. Fanon has them fucking a lot, fighting occasionally and laughing often. That sounds just about right, if you ask me. Perfect for them.
When you’re worn out and tired…when your heart has expired. Something happens to Collins after Angel’s death; it’s something and nothing. His friendship with Maureen (another subtle thing sketched in looks and gestures by Martin and Idina Menzel) is in evidence; she pauses to hug him and then he gives his eulogy (reprising the Angel/Collins love song from act 1). Here’s that quiet guy we were told about, only, this time, he’s quietly saying goodbye. I’ve been wondering why, after Angel’s funeral, he starts referring to her as ‘he’; earlier in the play, he’s called her his girl, his baby, but he tells Roger that he ‘can’t believe he’s gone’. I’m inclined to think that this shift has less to do with Collins and more to do with Angel and how she viewed herself; in my head, she’s neither specifically male or female, just Angel. In the photo resting on her coffin, Angel’s out of drag, so maybe Collins assigns pronouns on a day by day basis. It’s probably not important in terms of his character but it’s interesting what shows, in grief.
I had a little hunch you could use a little flow. Collins goes away and comes back, again on Christmas Eve. This is how traditions start. Canonically, there’s no hint of where he’s gone; to wherever his parents are, back to Boston…Santa Fe, maybe? You get the feeling that he’s moving to stay still - it’s been two months since Angel died. It’s harder to drown while you’re moving; maybe people drown because they lose the will to move. When he comes back, he brings a pocket full of dollars and another story about anarchy to go with ‘programming the MIT Virtual Reality Equipment to self destruct as it broadcast the words Actual Reality! Act up! Fight AIDS!”. This kind of anarchy (rigging the ATM at an upmarket food place to pay out with a code) is popular in fanon; it’s raising a little hell without hurting anyone, and people have trouble associating Collins, so loving and happy, with anything that does harm. The code, of course, is familiar; A-N-G-E-L. On the stage, the scene fades to black, in the movie, the boys are once again drinking Stoli and Collins raises a little toast to Heaven. It’s a perfect Collins gesture. It sums him up with a look.
Do you know the way to Santa Fe? You know…tumbleweeds…prairie dawgs. So why do we love Collins so very much? Because he’s simple but difficult to write well. Because there are so many gaps to step into. Collins in fanon is often bisexual, often the product of an abusive home. He’s been known to speak in an odd mixture of accent and esoteric non-sequiters. He has shoe fetishes and is constantly marking papers. He exists solely on Stoli and cigarettes and Captain Crunch. He usually ends up in Santa Fe, I find, at least for a while. He’s often caught starting fires. He does continue to teach though. He thinks of Angel often. Maybe Collins’ popularity comes down to how perfect a thing he and Angel are; he’s part of a whole which is, incredibly, better than the sum of its parts (and its parts were pretty damn amazing to begin with). For me, I think, Collins is my favourite because the way that I write him has evolved into this amazing, wonderful, easy to write (because he makes perfect sense) person who, at least part of the time, is resident in my head. The way that I write Collins is the kind of person that I’d like to be when I grow up (I’m twenty-one; I’m not done yet). He’s a good person, kind…he loves and thinks deeply. He believes deeply and he’s for life life life all the way. That can’t be bad, can it?
And what it all comes down to is that a little vagabond anarchy is good for the soul.
AUTHOR: me/eudaimon
CHARACTER: (Thomas B) Collins.
FANDOM: Rent.
SPOILERS: Total.
A/N: I've totally swapped between movie canon and musical canon without flagging it up. As dear Bill said, 'never apologise, never explain'. Songs for download are taken from the Rent OST (2005) and the Rent10 OBC performance bootleg (2006). Many thanks to orlanstamos, who's the friend with the Theory of Actual Reality. She's cleverer than I am.
do you know the way
to santa fe?
you know
tumbleweeds
& prarie dawgs...
A film-maker, a failed rockstar, a dancer, a musician, a performance artist; Rent is full of motherfucking artists. The artists are well and good, but their focus is narrow; I can’t help but think that if Rent had been a play solely about artists, not quite as many people would claim that the play changed their lives. Could it possibly have the same appeal if it revolved solely around Roger and Mimi and Mark and Maureen? Thankfully, Larson was clever enough and skilled enough to widen the field, and we do have variety in the form of a long suffering lesbian lawyer and a certain vagabond anarchist who blows back into town on Christmas Eve.
Enter Tom Collins.
Friends call me Collins, Tom Collins…nice tree. Collins makes his return to NYC on Christmas Eve[1]; he’s been an MIT, we find out later which makes sense; he looks like a cross between a vagrant and a grad-student, ever present beanie and layered ugly shirts. He’s handsome. He smiles a lot. He doesn’t have keys for the loft; either he hasn’t lived there in a while or he can’t be trusted with keys. In this world, either could be plausible. ‘A wild night is now preordained’ says Mark and he isn’t wrong. Collins is attacked and drops the phone. We’ve barely met him; he’s had three lines on stage, two of them sung but he’s made us laugh and we’re rooting for him. We don’t want for him to die of head injuries in an alleyway. We really don’t. And he doesn’t, of course. Tom Collins has a guardian angel. No, not her. She’s coming later.
I’m going to skip over Angel and come back to her. She’s important enough to Collins. I want to focus, for a moment, on the exchange between Collins, Roger and Mark when he does finally make it up to the loft. This is when we find out that Collins has been away for seven months and that he was, in fact, kicked out of MIT, ‘expelled…for [his] theory of Actual Reality’. We also find out everything we’re ever going to know, more or less, about Collins’ back-story in one line from Mark - ‘computer genius, teacher, vagabond anarchist who ran naked through the Parthenon’. Apparently, Thomas B Collins is something of a computer-age Renaissance man. It is worthwhile to note that (in the movie version at least) Collins is wearing three completely different shirts, despite having had his stuff stolen. Keep that in your head.
Basically, at first glance, Collins is hard not to like. He fits easily into this group to whom we’ve already been introduced; we can see how he relates to Benny, Mark and Roger. We know that he’s intelligent and that he’s occasionally given to sarcasm (his reaction to Roger’s ‘oh, hi…’; “’oh, hi’? After seven months? This boy could use some Stoli!’ is illustrative). Collins is easy to like on first impressions and, perhaps as importantly, he’s not an artist. Good then. We can move on.
They expelled me for my theory of actual reality which I’ll soon impart to the couch potatoes at New York University. Collins is a thinker but, then again, he has a lot to think about. For at least some period of time in the seven months immediately preceding Christmas Eve, he’s spent time studying at MIT (in my head, it makes most sense if he was actually at MIT September-December, and was gone wandering for the summer. Mark describes him as a ‘vagabond anarchist’ after all and vagabonds wander). Whatever happened, Collins wasn’t at MIT for very long. One gets the feeling that Collins isn’t ever anywhere for very long.
Collins’ Theory of Actual Reality is something which fanon doesn’t actually attack very often (from what I’ve seen). People seem to content to let sleep dogs lie which is, probably, wise. In recent conversation, a friend and I came to the conclusion that Collins was probably on the skids at MIT before he blew up their computers; between us, we decided that Collins theory would probably have made waves at a college so proud of technological advancement. Between us, we sketched out a theory which basically comes down to the issue of Ideology. Forgive me for this, what follows; I have my degree in English Lit (mea cupla). Ideology comes down to the lies that you’re told by the people in power in order to keep you complacent. If virtual reality relies on perception then actual reality surely has to do with what you can touch, what you can literally experience…so Collins’ theory has to do with being FOR LIFE in all of its forms, be it streaking through monuments, living with disease and meeting the love of your life in an alleyway. If Collins loves computers it's because they can be dismantled; they don't have to be a filter for experience. The thing which Collins really loves is Life which is probably why he finds it so easy to fall for a person like Angel Dumott Schunard. It all comes down to Actual Reality and MIT just didn’t understand.
Fanon varies on this subject, but the general consensus seems to be that Collins was at MIT as a postgraduate, having attained an undergrad qualification elsewhere. Different people attribute different levels of importance to different bits of the back-story which Mark gives to Collins. I’ve seen him described as a ‘computer hacker’, ‘philosopher’, ‘professor’, ‘anarchist’. Most of the time, he seems to be little more than Angel’s lover. It’s more than that, though. He is. Collins is a deep thinker. He knows a lot of things which are only hinted at during the play. He talks about metaphysic puzzles and grading papers (academia), anything but Heidegger (Philosophy) and, in the Life Café, Angel talks about ‘his exploits as anarchist’, which speaks for itself. It is also important not to forget that, like Angel, Collins is HIV+. This is a necessary part of his character; like Angel, not like Roger, Collins is about life, despite his illness. He’s about living and moving and questioning and life. Santa Fe is the difference between Roger and Collins. It’s indicative of Collins’ desire to keep moving, to live with and despite his disease. Mostly, though, what we hear of him is loving Angel, but, in all fairness, she’s the context that we know him in and she defines him. Collins can be all of these things, and he is, but what he most obviously is, along with Angel, is the emotional heart of Rent. If Angel is like a force of nature than Collins is a Shakespearean everyman; you might want to know someone like Angel, but you’ve got more a chance of turning out like Collins, in the end.
Don't got much baggage to lay at your feet, but sweet kisses I've got to spare. Tom Collins, in terms of Rent, is not a creature that can be taken in isolation. You have to approach him as filtered through and by love. Meeting Angel is the completion of Collins’ first scene; yes, he’s going to be detained but not just by those blows to the head. The encounter is telling about both of them; Angel is kind and bursting with joy, Collins is at first bitter and sarcastic, then shy. In the interim, he’s almost lascivious; “but you missed a sleeve” feeds into “Angel…indeed” informs into “but my friends are waiting”. Collins blushes; Angel makes him blush. I’ve always wanted to ask Collins at what exact moment did he become aware of Angel as the love of his life? There are a lot of questions that I want to ask Collins about Angel; did they sleep together that first night? What did they eat for dinner? What did he think when he first saw her in drag? Collins’ sexuality is another term of fanon conjecture; is he gay, bi, or experimenting? I, personally, like to think of Collins’ sexuality as another fact of him being For Life, for every opportunity, for her. I like to think of Collins as open to possibility so, when Angel walks into his life carrying her pickle tub, he opens his arms and embraces her with his whole heart.
On the subject of Collins and Angel, there’s a quote from a Jesse. L. Martin interview that, to me, is the perfect explanation of Collins: "He first time you see him, he has never been in love before and people don’t know that but the truth of the matter is that is the way that the character was given to me when we were back in the initial workshop stage, he has never ever, ever been in love, he has had people that he loves around him but he has never been in love. So Angel comes along and she is the most vibrant thing that anybody has ever seen and the humble guy gets the vibrant one. I am very, very happy about that story line, I thought it was really, really beautiful that you don’t see Collins before the story happens but he is a particular shy guy and this woman, boy, man, thing comes in and literally changes his life and suddenly he is running around jumping on the subway, dancing on tables like it literally changes his life."
We don’t see much of Collins to illustrate this ‘particular shy guy’ that Jesse obviously knows so well but maybe that’s because he’s among friends. Mostly, it’s around Angel that we get a hint, and it’s a visual thing. She makes him blush, with her directness. Angel knows what he wants; I’m not convinced that, before Angel, Collins really did. It’s telling to watch their body language; in the scene in the loft after Today 4 U they’re almost a couple, touching and smiling and sharing a smoke. Collins is wearing three new shirts (remember this?). It’s nice to imagine Angel giving them to him (though they can’t be hers, witness the relative size difference between Martin and Heredia and anyway, they’re ugly). Collins and Angel seems to come out of nowhere; she asks him to move in with her within hours of meeting him, ostensibly because he has nowhere or nothing but maybe because that’s what happens when lighting strikes. Collins walks in embarrassed circles and kisses her in the street; in Mark’s words (about another couple entirely) it’s ‘a small, sweet kiss’. After that, they’re definitely a couple; they’re always touching. The scene with the riot after Maureen’s performance is perfect Angel and Collins; once they’ve decided to be together, they fight for it. The scenes of them clinging together after Angel starts to get sick are heartbreaking; suddenly, Collins looks so much bigger than Angel. He’s sitting on the bed in the hospital with his shoes off. He isn’t going to be moved.
There are a lot of gaps in Collins and Angel’s relationship; almost the entire of it, for example. In the NYTW version of the script (it’s missing from all later versions), there’s an answer phone message that announces they’ve gone to steal an air-conditioner and will be back later. Fanon has them fucking a lot, fighting occasionally and laughing often. That sounds just about right, if you ask me. Perfect for them.
When you’re worn out and tired…when your heart has expired. Something happens to Collins after Angel’s death; it’s something and nothing. His friendship with Maureen (another subtle thing sketched in looks and gestures by Martin and Idina Menzel) is in evidence; she pauses to hug him and then he gives his eulogy (reprising the Angel/Collins love song from act 1). Here’s that quiet guy we were told about, only, this time, he’s quietly saying goodbye. I’ve been wondering why, after Angel’s funeral, he starts referring to her as ‘he’; earlier in the play, he’s called her his girl, his baby, but he tells Roger that he ‘can’t believe he’s gone’. I’m inclined to think that this shift has less to do with Collins and more to do with Angel and how she viewed herself; in my head, she’s neither specifically male or female, just Angel. In the photo resting on her coffin, Angel’s out of drag, so maybe Collins assigns pronouns on a day by day basis. It’s probably not important in terms of his character but it’s interesting what shows, in grief.
I had a little hunch you could use a little flow. Collins goes away and comes back, again on Christmas Eve. This is how traditions start. Canonically, there’s no hint of where he’s gone; to wherever his parents are, back to Boston…Santa Fe, maybe? You get the feeling that he’s moving to stay still - it’s been two months since Angel died. It’s harder to drown while you’re moving; maybe people drown because they lose the will to move. When he comes back, he brings a pocket full of dollars and another story about anarchy to go with ‘programming the MIT Virtual Reality Equipment to self destruct as it broadcast the words Actual Reality! Act up! Fight AIDS!”. This kind of anarchy (rigging the ATM at an upmarket food place to pay out with a code) is popular in fanon; it’s raising a little hell without hurting anyone, and people have trouble associating Collins, so loving and happy, with anything that does harm. The code, of course, is familiar; A-N-G-E-L. On the stage, the scene fades to black, in the movie, the boys are once again drinking Stoli and Collins raises a little toast to Heaven. It’s a perfect Collins gesture. It sums him up with a look.
Do you know the way to Santa Fe? You know…tumbleweeds…prairie dawgs. So why do we love Collins so very much? Because he’s simple but difficult to write well. Because there are so many gaps to step into. Collins in fanon is often bisexual, often the product of an abusive home. He’s been known to speak in an odd mixture of accent and esoteric non-sequiters. He has shoe fetishes and is constantly marking papers. He exists solely on Stoli and cigarettes and Captain Crunch. He usually ends up in Santa Fe, I find, at least for a while. He’s often caught starting fires. He does continue to teach though. He thinks of Angel often. Maybe Collins’ popularity comes down to how perfect a thing he and Angel are; he’s part of a whole which is, incredibly, better than the sum of its parts (and its parts were pretty damn amazing to begin with). For me, I think, Collins is my favourite because the way that I write him has evolved into this amazing, wonderful, easy to write (because he makes perfect sense) person who, at least part of the time, is resident in my head. The way that I write Collins is the kind of person that I’d like to be when I grow up (I’m twenty-one; I’m not done yet). He’s a good person, kind…he loves and thinks deeply. He believes deeply and he’s for life life life all the way. That can’t be bad, can it?
And what it all comes down to is that a little vagabond anarchy is good for the soul.