RENT and the AIDS movement — Page 5

Robbie, the "exceedingly broad statements" didn't originate with me here (though I'm sure I've been guilty of making them before). What I suggested was that the people making them ought to support them. The point certainly wasn't that I am being personally neglected. (Obviously not.)

If I seemed ungrateful for your responses, I apologize.

In re RENT, every term I would have a number of RENT fans in my classes and I would watch as they returned to see RENT week after week after week. Now that certainly made money for the owners of RENT, but I don't know that any other change was effected. I'm sure we can both appreciate the irony of kids paying $100+ for tickets to hear other kids sings about the evils of bourgeois commercialism. (No, I don't think the show's popularity was a crisis in Western civilization. But I do think it tended to be the safest possible place where middle-class kids could play at being bohemians.)

I really don't know the history of URINETOWN. (Was Kay Walbye in it with you? She's an old friend.) I only saw it recently and very much enjoyed it. If you say it helped to insure the survival of the NY Fringe Festival, I believe you and good for the show.

Obviously, every show that succeeds has at least the potential of convincing somebody (including audience members) to invest in yet another show. A rising tide floats all boats when it comes to the theater. I do believe that, because it is my personal experience: if I enjoy a show, I immediately want to see another one.

But also obviously, that's not the same thing as affecting society outside the theater itself.

Fair enough, Robbie. I did indeed make the overly broad statement that "theater doesn't matter" and I have already admitted that I was being deliberately provocative in the face of what struck me as equally broad claims for the efficacy of theater. And in response I got a lot posts that seemed to say "My sister's boyfriend's cousin, Susie, really likes theater, so therefore it matters."

And that's fine as far as it goes. I've attended Peter Seller's "Disneyland is a Fascist Attempt to Divert Us from Real Change" lecture and I don't need to repeat it here. If a trip to the theater is simply two hours of diversion, then that is its own merit, I suppose. Better than sitting on the couch watching JERSEY SHORE if only because we have to get up off the couch.

Another way to counter my argument is to point out, as you and few others have done, specific examples of changes effected by theatrical productions. Those have been in short supply here, probably because our theater's primary remaining purpose is to reassure members of the middle class (I'm a member, too) that the world really is as we see it, while also letting us congratulate ourselves on our erudition. Or, in the alternative, we can go to the Public and then feel good that we have braved the downtown area while expanding our horizons--before going back to the very lives we lived before.

As for URINETOWN, I only wrote "helped to insure". I didn't think or imply that you were making exaggerated claims for its importance. And, again, I was frankly surprised how much I liked the show. (It IS a terrible title, as the text points out.)

Likewise, I will entirely take your word as to how RENT changed performers who appeared in it or hoped to do so. I am not a performer and have no reason to disbelieve you. This is not an unwillingness to "engage", just an honest acknowledgement that I haven't the experiences you have had. I'm very grateful that you shared yours. From my admittedly distant view, it seems that every half-decade or so there's a show that galvanizes the Broadway (and Broadway-hopeful) community. I remember when it was A CHORUS LINE, then EVITA, etc.

But at the risk of seeming contrary, I have to note that, here again, we're talking about how theater has changed the theater.

I thought the issue was how theater changes the world. No?

(ETA I'm sure you know RENT better than I and I trust your articulation of its core "thesis". But it is called "RENT", not "TODAY".)

Updated On: 7/5/12 at 05:39 PM

^^^qolbinau, sure it would. But as others have pointed out, RENT came along a little late for that news. Still it may have informed teens who hadn't been paying attention to traditional news media.

^^^And here he is, right on schedule! $20 to the first person who can find a post where I claim to be an "authority on interior design".

Once upon a time there was a sweet little Off-Bway show called "The Vagina Monologues." It became a hit. Its feminist point of view was something a lot of the younger audience members thought they were post-. It's something many of its older audience members thought had passed.

Yet it shed light on stories from around the globe, bringing mainstream attention to female genital mutilation, rape, and women's basic human right to self-determination and pleasure. Big deal, who cares, exposing an audience to a woman-centered point of view is NOTHING, it's not like those audience members went out and did anything to change the world.

Oh, except for the little fact that The Vagina Monologues spawned The V-Day Foundation, which in ten years raised over 85 MILLION DOLLARS that was distributed to organizations and groups that fight violence against women and girls.

We weren't talking about Vagina Monologues, Gaveston? Tough titties. Why don't you consider what was accomplished by a cool little piece of theater and talk to me like a five year old so that I can finally understand your inarguable point that even thinking theater can change the world is a futile exercise that's essentially patting myself on the back, since I had the good taste to see the show four times?

Go ahead.

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Updated On: 7/5/12 at 11:30 PM

And, of a more recent vintage, there is the SH*Tshow that surrounded Mike Daisey and his 'reportage' theatre piece on the Apple factory in China.

If theatre can no longer inspire change, why the hell hari kari your career over a fake story??

Perhaps it is your distance from NY that is coloring your view about what theatre in NYC really is. You brought up Follies in regards to something recent that moved you and forced you to think and listen in a way you feel you haven't in a while. I liked Follies. A lot. But I don't think it would be in the top 10 productions I've seen in the last 10 years or 15 years. The Mendes/Marshall CABARET was shocking in its overt sexuality and its go-for-broke performances that were shattering. The Scottsboro Boys was one of the most difficult nights in the theatre I've ever had, and it shook me to my core. Caroline, or Change is perhaps the best musical of the new century. Yes...none of these were major hits (well...Cabaret was a huge hit). But I'm very, very grateful that these works, though overshadowed, are still being done. Because it holds out the possibility that something serious and difficult and thought-provoking will once again speak to society in a way that breaks through.

If you want to see what the "AIDS movement" was like, look for this movie, "United in Anger," which the NY Times reviewed today.

This picture is of a beautiful and talented Broadway actor, Mark Fotopoulos, who was felled by the Plague.



Mark kept marching and carrying that sign, with the number advancing, until he couldn't any more. Mark was "living with AIDS," as they sing in Rent, until he was dead from AIDS.

And at no point during the time Mark was alive to carry that sign did Mr. Reagan, the president of the United States, utter the words "AIDS" or "HIV," neither in a speech, a press conference, or instructions to his cabinet.


Taking Aim at a Lethal Disease, and Making Sure Everyone Else Does, Too ‘United in Anger: A History of Act Up,’ by Jim Hubbard

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Updated On: 7/6/12 at 01:25 PM

Just another example of theatre having effecting no change in the larger world

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Just another example of theatre having effecting no change in the larger world

Namo, I don't think anyone can deny the theater community (elsewhere, too, but especially in NYC) has contributed greatly to AIDS research and relief, as well as other causes.

I'm joining this thread very late and I confess to not having read every response, but I wanted to chime in.

To answer the original question, Rent did in fact have a big effect on AIDS awareness and AIDS education. Perhaps it was old news in NYC and had little impact here, it certainly had a big impact in other parts of the country. Growing up in Ohio, HIV and AIDS were just not discussed. Someone else mentioned this being the case in their small, conservative Texas town as well.

Stuff like The Normal Heart and Angels in America hadn't penetrated our area. Maybe a tour came through, but it didn't have any impact. It was Rent that brought change. It opened up discussion about the disease that truly was not there before. It was a force of cultural change. It was extra shocking that it delivered it's message with hope.

Theater, through Rent, still had cultural impact and ability to change and start dialogue. It certainly did with me and my parents, church group and teachers. Gaveston- theater still is a lot more effective in other parts of the country than you might think.

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Good, Whizzer, I'm glad to hear it.

Robbie, I just lost a much longer post in response to yours. Suffice it to say, yes, Palm Springs can be isolating unless you have unlimited time and money to go into L.A.

But I lived in the latter when URINETOWN toured. I just didn't happen to catch it.

But I knew of its existence. The Pony Express comes through town every Thursday with the previous Sunday's YUMA GAZETTE. :)

Updated On: 7/6/12 at 05:58 PM

Boy, that does bring back memories, joey!

Which is good.

I think.

In the 80s, I worked at a large law firm where it literally came down to the office manager saying, "Anyone who doesn't want to work with gay or HIV+ people can go find the door instead." It's scary to remember how people's lives sometimes depended on the conscience of a single person in power.

I am featured in that clip, in the Grand Central Station Die-In demonstration.



I am the fourth incomprehensible gray blob on the left near the stairway.

That's me! Getting ready to join the die-in on the floor of Grand Central Station while my father had to step over me to catch the 5:52.

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Updated On: 7/9/12 at 12:52 AM