DTBG2 sees RENT thrice: reviews...5/13 - 5/15

okay, well this was my FIRST trip to Manhattan and I had a blast. I was there on "business" but I just had to see RENT...three times! RENT is awesome, and it got better everytime I saw it. Every show was different than the other...oh yeah, did i mention that i loved New York! *you'll miss new york before you could unpack** so true...

RENT 5/13, 5/14, and 5/15:
The 5/13 show was strange becuase when the cast came out on the stage, and the audience died down with the cheering, the cast just stared into the audience for a couple minutes, which felt like forever...it was kinda creepy and awkward...but whatever...I've never seen that done before..

Matt caplan is my favorite Mark. His voice is soo awesome, and he does a good job selling the character with those jerky movements and crazy facial expressions..he also loves performing becuase he's always goofing off on stage and doing sponataneous stuff..from time to time, he would make another actor crack out laughing during the show. Cary Shields did not impress me soo much until the third time i saw RENT on 5/15. He seemed kind of drained and tired before then...Karmine Alers had low energy the first nigh, but she was awesome as Mimi the rest of the days I saw RENT..her voice is soo mezmorizing.

D'Monroe did his thing as Benny, all three nights...I hate to say it but i was inspired by him...even though he is playing my future role! >:OP his understudy Philip Dorian McaAdoo took over Benny on 5/14, he was HORRIBLE. First of all, he is wayy too tall, and he had a gut..and it was not very sexy to see during "contact" and he moved very slow, i think all the choreography was slowed down just for him...his voice was dull, and would crack when he tried for high notes..and i swear he was asleep standing up during "seasons of love." Hated Him!! He ruined one of my favorite characters.

Frenchie Davis, who was walking right behind me once as I headed into the theatre...was awesome every night. Her voice is kind of too pretty to be bag lady, but she brings down the house every solo she gets...

Kelly's Maureen was on point every night, whenever you could tell that the other actors were tired, drained, low energy...you could be able to say that she was none of these things...every night she did an awesome job, and she is super pretty...i saw her walk in too as i was standing in the lobby, and i was like DAAAAMN!!

But yeah, there is my review..sort of...i dont think i really talked about the play a lot, just the actors and how they performed..everyone should know what RENT's about anyway...so yeah...

I LOVE NYC, a week i will never forget.

That's amazing you got to see the show 3 times in a row!
Glad you had such an awesome time

Wait...Enrico Rodriguez?

Was he listed in the playbill as the actual Angel or the understudy?

I absolutely adore his voice on the Zanna, Don't! soundtrack and I saw him in the ensemble in August.

-Grace

I'm not a big fan of kelly, but I don't think her performance is awful. In comparison to other maureens, her's is very weak. But she's still quite good.

it's a shame you didnt see caren lyn manuel, but karmine is decent.

glad you had fun- it's an awesome show.

---

I really loved Kelly's Maureen when I saw her.

But I have nothing to compare her to except Ava, who I didn't care for very much. She wasn't bad or anything, she just didn't do anything for me. I know Maureen isn't neccessarily the most likeable person in the world... but both the touring Maureen and Joanne seemed like such bitches that... you just didn't like them very much at all.

Now, when I saw Rent the tour, there was clearly lots of fire and energy emanating from the stage. You could feel it EVERYWHERE. And that's how Rent is supposed to be. That being said, I think the spirit of Rent dies a little as Rent gets older on Broadway. That's not to say you can't enjoy a Broadway performance- I most certainly did when I saw it a month later on Broadway- but it feels to me like some of the spark is gone.

That being said, when Kelly and Merle sang Take Me or Leave Me it felt like that spark was back. (It was much better than the tour version's, in my opinion.) I felt the same energy, the same fire flowing through the theatre as I had when I saw the tour's opening number. I thought, in that performance, it was the best executed number in the show. Kelly's big entrance in Xmas Bells I thought was exceptionally effective, and I liked Kelly's Over the Moon much better than Ava's- I thought it was funnier- although, towards the very end (the mooing), Kelly started to do these weird seizure-like things that I didn't understand. She also played Maureen as less of a bitch. Maureen still had all her flaws of course, but she had a likeable side to her too (I didn't get anything likeable about Maureen from Ava). You could actually tell that Maureen and Joanne LIKED each other (they're fighting so much that, in the tour, it seemed like they hated each other!). There were other little things I liked about Kelly's performance, but it was months ago and I'm having difficulty remembering. One thing I do remember, though- during Without You, when Maureen and Joanne make-up, Maureen just got up in a really determined way, like "This has got to stop" and went and made up with Joanne. That was real character development people! LOL. At least, I saw it that way- it really touched me to see Maureen give in, in such a conscious "I'm making the move to admit I was wrong" way. Anyway, that's what I liked about Kelly. I know A LOT of people don't like her, and I respect that... but I'd like to know why. What about her interpretation did you not like?

---