Recently I got an email from a really nice theatre press agency asking if I still wanted to be on their mailing list. I definitely appreciated the check in, especially because the same rep checked in with me early in the pandemic just to see how I was doing. What was jarring was their reason for inquiring about my interest was because they hadn’t seen my byline in awhile. Yikes, thanks, didn’t need a reminder of that. But also…the pandemic. Pre-pandemic I reviewed films and theatre. In the year and a half of Covid, I saw one movie in theatres, In The Heights, during the pre-Delta days and haven’t stepped foot into a theatre for a live performance. 

I’ve missed live theatre a lot. I’ve attempted to watch some theatre via Zoom during the pandemic but it doesn’t hold much magic for me. It’s too easy to pull out my phone on the couch and idly scroll. It may sound stodgy, and it’s the same thing at movie theatres, but I like to follow the rules and leave my phone on silent and tucked away while I focus on the performance. I miss the self-righteousness I get to have when someone’s cell phone goes off and I can shake my head in disdain. Simple pleasures. 

I rediscovered those pleasure this past Wednesday night at Signature Theatre’s season-opening production of Rent. I was a self-proclaimed Rent-head in middle school when the show first came to New York Theatre Workshop and then to Broadway. Like I said before, I was a theatre kid. I listened to the cast recording on cassette in my Walkman on the bus to and from school. I had the big black book with faux duct tape on the cover with the script inside but more importantly, the oral history of the show from the cast and crew along with lots of behind-the-scenes photos. I still have that book and I still am obsessed with how the now-uncoupled Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs (who met while doing Rent) co-parent their adorable son. The fandom runs deep. 

There was something really comforting about returning to theatre at a show that I know by heart; I knew it would be high energy and I also knew there would be songs and moments that always make me cry. This performance very reliably had both. The cast is young and sexy and talented and the big voices are there.

This pandemic has aged me. I’ve had a second child and navigated my eldest daughter through Zoom school. I’m not dancing on tables or begging anyone to take me ow-ow-ow-woo tonight. I’m mostly begging for my children to go to bed. So there’s a vicarious thrill to see a good-looking, energetic cast that look and feel like they’re having a ball.

It’s fun to see some new faces on Signature’s stage. I’ve grown up in the area and pre-pandemic reviewed a lot of shows. I have favorite area actors but it’s always very fun to see new faces that make me want to look in the program and find out more about them. Josh A. Dawson (as Tom Collins) and David Merino (as Angel) are two actors who made me dig into my program for different reasons. Dawson’s Collins was a really fun surprise. There was a fun disdain/cattiness and lightness to the character I hadn’t seen before. I found myself watching his reactions to other characters. Merino’s Angel felt entirely familiar. Angel is an iconic character and there are expectations to how they’re played and Merino definitely hit those notes of warmth and fun but I think what surprised me in their performance was how much I needed the joy that character brought. There’s no guile and just an immediate desire for friendship from this often prickly group of angsty Gen Xers. Something about that joy and genuine desire for connection resonated. I felt I needed Angel’s energy as much as the characters in the show. 

An interesting thing I was looking for at the beginning of the show was whether Rent resonated with modern day. Especially as political parties attempt to make specious connections between Covid and the AIDS crisis. There’s also perhaps a connection between gentrification and the tyranny of paying rent and the rent wars during the pandemic. I just didn’t feel any connections within the show. Which is fine. I don’t necessarily think this production is trying to make those connections. Except there is one glorious moment when a Black homeless woman yells at whiny, mostly spineless white boy Mark for filming her without her consent for his own gain and then she turns around and asks for a dollar which he of course doesn’t have to give her. That was a moment that still felt oh-so-relevant. But seeing Rent now is as a mid-to-late 90s time capsule. 

That time period is making a comeback in fashion of sorts so one really fun element was seeing costume designer Erik Teague allowed himself to get away from the now very familiar costume elements of previous Rent productions: no Mark’s scarf, no caution tape body suit on Mimi. There got to be some genuine Gen X elements in the costumes which were a really fun element to the show–a Keith Haring shirt on an ensemble member, a very sexy, very elaborate Christmas-themed drag outfit on Angel, a Nine Inch Nails patch on Roger’s coat. 

I noticed little costume details because the production was done in semi-immersive staging. It was a really nice way to be thrown back into theatre. The audience was all masked and proof of vaccine or negative test is required so I didn’t feel nervous on that front. It was nice to not be at a complete remove and distanced from the stage–I’ve had enough of that through Zoom. I could feel the energy and joy from the actors. Audiences felt empowered to clap and snap and even “moo” along with the actors. Luckily, though it wasn’t too immersive because as much as I loved being back seeing live performance, I do want to preserve a bit of the bubble of personal space that Covid has nurtured. 

Because I was there on opening night I got the parting gift of a nice insulated coffee mug and chocolate chip cookies– two things that have high value in my pandemic world. And experiencing live theatre with one of my best friends as my plus one. That and coffee and cookies are very important and special to me. 

Feature photo David Merino (Angel Dumott Schunard) and Josh A. Dawson (Tom Collins) in RENT at Signature Theatre. Photo by Christopher Mueller. Courtesy of Signature Theatre

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