Rent at Quad City Music Guild: A Review
I had the opportunity to see the production of Rent at Quad City Music Guild a week ago. I was a paying customer for Friday's opening night performance, and I took in this past Sunday's as a busgreeter.
Directed by Jeff Ashcraft, this production of Rent absolutely popped with life. It did right from the opening curtain. And it was a great experience to see it opening night. These actors weren't burnt out. They were in the zone. They were thrilled to be putting up a production of an avant-garde Jonathan Larson musical in the Quad Cities.
Chase Austin plays the role of Mark. A videographer from a loving Jewish American family, Mark has dreams of breaking out as a filmmaker. With a handheld camera, he films all of his friends as they go about their life in the East Village, Alphabet City, Manhattan, New York, in the 1990's.
His roommate, Roger, has AIDS. Tim Dominicus plays Roger. His girlfriend, April, whom he loved very much, has passed away. Suicide.
Myka Walljasper plays Joanne. She has just recently started dating Mark's ex-girlfriend, Maureen.
Both feel threatened by the other while they do a tango dance to Tango Maureen. In that scene, Mark was called up by Joanne at the absolute last second to help her set up the sound system for her piece of performance art, a one woman show which is basically a big, long, beatnik style poetry slam.
Mark and Roger have a friend, Tom Collins. He's a teacher, so of the friends' group living in the shabby apartment just east of Greenwich Village, he may have the most means to pay rent. But oh, he's getting robbed during the big opening production number, Rent.
Keenan Wilson plays Tom Collins. He makes the acquaintance of Angel. Played by Gary Mayfield, Angel is a gay cross-dresser. He brings Collins with him to an AIDS support group meeting.
It is a magical effect when Mayfield has his costume change of Angel as a man at the support group meeting to Angel in drag.
Tom Collins and Angel remind me of Adam and Eve in Children of Eden. Or Noah and Mama Noah. They don't know how long they have. But they will face it as one. And they will face it with love.
Actually, very much the same could be said of Tim Dominicus as Roger and Kira Rangel as Mimi.
Mimi is a drug addict. And she happens to have the same prescription medication as Roger has for his AIDS complications.
Both of them refrain from sharing their health history with the other. For Roger's part, he tries to push her away; it's out of an abundance of caution. Love is letting go.
Kira Rangel, as Mimi, lives for the moment. In some sense, maybe that's the point of Rent. One of the showstopping numbers is "No Day But Today." But the more drawn to Mimi Roger becomes, the more he wants to ply her away from her heroin addiction. An ex-junkie himself, he's been clean for about six months. When he sees she goes to the very same drug dealer as he used to, he steps in and sings "you won't miss her, you don't miss me."
In as much as this show announces "no day but today," it also comes with a distinct message of "take care of yourselves and each other," to borrow Lestor Holt's nightly sign-off on the NBC Nightly News.
I think that Rent prides itself in professing that people live laugh and love like there's no tomorrow. But also to keep adding tomorrows. 525,600 minutes of tomorrows. And to fill each day with love for the girlfriends, roommates, friends and family who have loved them into being.
Of course, that's not to say the ensemble of Rent lives in fear at all times. The cast of characters fight back against the landowners. They fight eviction with the defiant "La Vie Boheme." They make plans for the future. Tom Collins sings to Angel about ditching New York for Santa Fe, New Mexico, and opening a restaurant. Roger has dreams of a music career. He spends the play working on a song that may fetch him a record contract, as he confides in One Song Glory.
As for Mark, his footage of the rally at the Life Cafe that took place after Joanne's one-woman show may make it onto one of those cheap, tacky newsmagazine shows from the 1990's, the likes of A Current Affair or Hard Copy. But is that how he wants to have his art and craft portrayed? Is that the stamp he wants to make on the world? Stephanie Moeller absolutely chewed up her scenes as a craven, opportunistic television producer who leaves sing-songy voice messages with her phone number, her e-mail, and yes her pager, for him to contact her with his consent to work with her syndicated program. (And give up on working as an indie-hipster. He really would be giving a lot up from an artistic standpoint as a filmogropher in the pursuit of money.)
As the musical winds its way through the 2nd half, we see one of the characters begin to get really sick from complications of the AIDS virus. Another has a relapse into drug abuse and disappears to the streets. Will their struggles cause this group of starving artists to disband? Save themselves rather than lose themselves in the fight to save a friend or loved one? Or will they wind up digging their heels in, searching for the missing love of their life who is in trouble, or sitting bedside vigil with them, holding their hand in the hospital?
Too vast the amount of characters and performers to describe with justice here. In a previous facebook post, I discussed Joe Wren as an AIDS support group attendee who doesn't understand why he gets to live, as does Roger, in unison with him. I thought that moment was absolutely the essence of Rent. I also mentioned Julie Hummel as Roger's mom, worried sick about her boy. Em Schwartz had a heart-wrenching moment as Mimi's mother, leaving a message in Spanish begging her daughter to call, worried for her safety. She's well aware of her daughter's struggles.
I also wanted to praise the ensemble members who got solos. Katie Griswold had a honey of a soprano solo in "Seasons of Love" that did literally bring me to tears. As did numerous other moments of this production. Great work by Rishim Bhogal, DeMario Rankin, Robert Wamer, Drew DeKeyrel, Cody Dutton, Jay Whitmore, Amber Whitaker, Valeree Pieper, Katie Griswold, and Adrienne Evans.
Jeff Ashcraft wanted Rent to be done authentic to its artistic vision of Jonathan Larson and the subject matter. Artists wanting to be seen and heard. This show sees them and hears them. He did so with the help of fellow production staff members Michael Van Belle (assistant director), Sara Laufer (choreographer, I loved Tango Maureen), Mitch Carter (music director) and Jonathan Turner (assistant music director) who together got exactly the 1990's grunge, club, and pop pit sound that they wanted), stage manager Kelsey Walljasper, seet designer Crista Ashcraft, costume designer Karen Dubberke, lighting designer Bill Pfeiffer, Sound Designer Giovanni Macias, and producer Erin Platt.
Rent is set in the AIDS epidemic, and we put it on as our country is still in the midst of the COVID pandemic. It's about coming closer together when a virus is pulling us apart causing disease. This was absolutely as relevant in 2023 as it was when it came to Broadway in 1996. I loved Rent.
