RENT on Broadway with the original cast was a once in a lifetime, lightening in a bottle moment. Even someone like me who isn't the greatest fan of the work can appreciate the effect it made at the time. For me, those extraordinary performances elevated what I don't think is a great piece of writing.
Despite the fact that most of the original cast participated, the movie left me cold. It's mostly because RENT was a product of its time, and now mainly feels like a museum piece more than anything else.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
