Just your average 3/4-Star Review of Touring 'Rent'!

[BroadwayNorth2]

Posted: 1/16/10 at 7:46pm

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/rents-hard-to-like/article1432490/

[BroadwayBound062]

Posted: 1/16/10 at 8:01pm

harsh...

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/16/10 at 8:35pm

Entertaining, although the critic lost me when s/he called Nicolette Hart "quite funny."

[BroadwayNorth2]

Posted: 1/16/10 at 8:39pm

Perhaps the most entertaining paragraph:

"Mark is on a mission to figure out why he's the narrator of a musical in which absolutely nothing of interest happens to him, while Roger must struggle to get out of the funk he's in due to having AIDS and a late HIV-positive junkie girlfriend. He does that pretty quickly, allowing him to spend the last three quarters of Rent tediously breaking up and getting back together with his new HIV-positive, junkie girlfriend, Mimi (Lexi Lawson). (He's really got a type.)"

[Craww]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 12:01am

As worn out and flawed as Rent is, it's really no fun to read reviews by someone who has a longstanding hatred of the show they're reviewing.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 12:11am

It's hard to like, but it got three out of four stars? I mean, I get that you like a production but the show itself, there's nothing particularly revelatory about what the reviewer doesn't like about the show.

As much as I've always loved this show, it can easily be eviscerated, but this reviewer takes potshots that aren't even on target, let alone entertaining.

I give the review 3 out of four Stones, though, because everything was spelled correctly.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 12:26am

Canadians are so polite. "So in conclusion, I hate the show so I must take one of its four stars away."

[threetwoone]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 1:44am

"Canadians are so polite."

Thats us =D
It got me nowhere this week in a Seattle-based contest, however. Definitely would have helped to be an American for a week.

Oh, and my favourite line of this review is "and Gwen Stewart as the big, black woman who belts the solo part in Seasons of Love , the show's great song."

Is Gwen back in the tour? When I saw it, she was definitely not in it...
Updated On: 1/17/10 at 01:44 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 2:16am

I wondered about the racial implications of the comment, then considered that perhaps "big black woman" had become an archetype.

[taylorPHENOMENON2]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 2:31am

Hilarious

[canmark]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 11:22am

Yes, Gwen Stewart is back in the show. I saw it this past week. She was good, Rapp was good, Pascal was not quite as good as I had expected.

Nestruck's review does seem to poke fun at the characters, lyrics and plot of Rent as if we (the audience) are supposed to believe that they are great people who say amazing things and live an amazing life that we all aspire to live.

But maybe that was not the intention of the show?

Maybe, like in Passing Strange, say, we are older and wiser, and are looking back at young people with their cooler-than-thou outlook on life. Are they idealistic? Are they too hip for their own good? Or is their credo of equality and acceptance and resisting the status quo a valid, even inspiring one? Yes, perhaps La Vie Boheme is about the kids trying to sound smarter than they are... and maybe that's the point.

At least that was my take. When Rent came out all those many years ago, I was much younger and I, too, pretentiously thought those words profound. But now as I'm much older, I can interpret them in a different way. Not disdain, as Nestruck does, but with the kind of empathy you have for young people--full of spirit and energy, but lacking experience and understand of the way life is.

[canmark]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 11:24am

Yes, Gwen Stewart is back in the show. I saw it this past week. She was good, Rapp was good, Pascal was not quite as good as I had expected.

Nestruck's review does seem to poke fun at the characters, lyrics and plot of Rent as if we (the audience) are supposed to believe that they are great people who say amazing things and live an amazing life that we all aspire to live.

But maybe that was not the intention of the show.

Maybe, like in Passing Strange, say, we (the audience) are older and wiser, and are looking back at young people with their cooler-than-thou outlook on life. Are they idealistic? Are they too hip for their own good? Or is their credo of equality and acceptance and resisting the status quo a valid, even inspiring one? Yes, perhaps La Vie Boheme is about the kids trying to sound smarter than they are... and maybe that's the point.

At least that was my take. When Rent came out all those many years ago, I was much younger and I, too, pretentiously thought those words profound. But now as I'm much older, I can interpret them in a different way. Not disdain, as Nestruck does, but with the kind of empathy you have for young people--full of spirit and energy, but lacking experience and understanding of the way life is.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 12:19pm

Well put, canmark.

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 1/17/10 at 12:20pm

Gwen has been with the tour from the start, other than about a month's medical leave last summer. Kelly Nestruck writes just about the same review every time Rent hits Toronto. I don't know why he even bothers to go.