Broad Brook Opera House
107 Main Street, Broad Brook, Connecticut
Box Office: 860-292-6068
http://smplayers.homestead.com/OperaHouse.html
RENT
Fridays & Saturdays at 8 PM;
Sundays at 2 PM
February 12 through March 7, 2010
Reviewed by Thayer
We know that Broadway musical productions typically rely on fabulous orchestras to sweep us up, glamorous costumes to inspire us, and elaborate sets to foster our understanding -- all to stimulate our senses so that our hearts sing or break on cue.
However, for a community theater group, putting on a musical is a very different and far more difficult task. Due to limited funding, few props, and wardrobes that often come from the actors’ own closets, the success of the play rides wholly on the passion and sparkle of the cast and its ability to make us “see” far beyond what is visible. So, it is not a small compliment to say that The Opera House Players delivered an absolutely commanding performance of RENT at the Broad Brook Opera House -- commanding enough, in fact, that the run has been extended by popular demand. Kudos to Director Philip D. Vetro.
At curtain time, the packed house was alive with expectation. After all, the audience was about to see this famous play performed by the first non-professional group in Connecticut chosen to do it. The Broadway production of RENT closed in late 2008 after a 12-year run and 5,124 performances, making it the 8th longest running Broadway show.
Though called a “period piece” by some because it is set back in the mid-90s when HIV/AIDS meant a death sentence for gays and drug users, RENT is, nevertheless, quite contemporary because starving artists even now populate New York’s Lower East Side and because -- most of all -- RENT is primarily about love. The message to “Live each day as your last” is, in 2010, as relevant as ever.
As one might easily guess, the story is about the need to pay the rent and still manage to have the time and space for artistic dreams and human desires.
Mark (Thomas Jon Creatore), a filmmaker, shares an industrial loft with his roommate Roger (Tom Knightlee), a musician who falls in love with Mimi (Gia Wright), an S&M dancer. Mark’s former girlfriend Maureen (Erica Lindblad), a performing artist, has just left him for Joanne (Nicole R. Giguere), a Harvard Law School graduate. Tom Collins (Christopher deJongh) is a friend of Mark’s and Roger’s who falls in love with the financially shady Angel (Giovannie ‘Deseo’ Mendez) who tranvests into the fabulously attired (in wig, glitter and platform pumps) Angel Dumontt Schunard. Benny (Wayne Crow) is the big, bad landlord who demands the rent but shows a softer side when Angel dies and he offers to pay for the funeral -- as he steals Mimi from Roger. Roger sells his guitar and leaves to open a restaurant in Santa Fe but changes his mind and comes back. Tom Collins comes into money when he visits a rewired ATM that gives cash to anyone who knows the password: Angel. But wait -- there’s more -- much more -- and you’ll just have to see the show to find out what.
As interesting as the show itself is the amazing back story to RENT. Jonathan Larson, a long struggling composer, spent years waiting for his first break while he developed RENT, a story essentially about the bohemian life style. Finally, the show was set for its first off-Broadway preview at the New York Theater Workshop. On that same night, he suffered a fatal aortic aneurism. The show went on to become the “landmark musical” Larson had always hoped for -- winning a Tony for Best Musical as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2005 a film version was released.
The Opera House Players’ performance of RENT, based on the music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson, featured choreography by Todd Santa Maria and musical direction by Angela Klimaytis. The Orchestra Pit was filled out by Angela Klimaytis (conductor) on the keyboard, Steven Siemiatoski on guitar, and Arron Jackson on bass. Jeff Calissi provided percussion and Marissa Giglio was on guitar II and keyboard II.
Suggested for mature audiences.
Coming to the Opera House in May 2010:
the hauntingly beautiful musical,
The Secret Garden
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© The Arts, etc., Copyright 2010
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