Rent vs. Spring Awakening — Page 3

I can't really comment, because I've never seen Spring Awakening, but from what I've heard of the music, I'm thinking that, even if I had seen SA, I'd still say Rent. Like I said, I can't really comment because I can't compare the two, I just know that when I first heard Rent's score, I feel in love with the show, before I ever saw it. When I heard some of SA's score, I wasn't particularly moved.

what I can comment on however...
[in response to Rent]I haven't seen a truly good performance of the show since probably 2000.

to each their own, but I'm guessing you didn't go during The Return [when Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal were there this summer and early fall], because those were some amazing performances.

nydirector2, you asked what the point of Spring Awakening was, saying: "The whole theme of the show is about how kids should be allowed to discover things or know things...but the result is suicide and back alley abortions gone wrong. So does that mean the adults...aka the bad guys...were right after all?"

Wow, talk about somebody who completely missed the point of a show. Both the suicide and the abortion are the RESULT of the teen characters lack of knowledge and the fact that they are not being told the truth. The play suggests that had they been informed- neither of these tragedies would have happened in the first place.

That being said- I honestly have no idea which I'd pick because I love them both. I don't believe that the two can be, or should, be compared to each other.

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The point I was trying to make isn't so much about what Melchior knows or doesn't know. Yes, that's involved, but the problem is the way they treat how he acts with Wendla. He tells her it's okay, and gets her to agree to it, and in doing so something that was intended to be rape becomes, "oh, it's okay! They're in love!"

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RENT, it was the first... Spring Awakening is amazing but it can only hope to follow in RENT's footprints.

Emcee. I didn't think that way at all. In fact, that is one of the major problems with the show to me. I didn't like Melchior. She was going on pure emotion, he was manipulating her. He even says, "..baiting some girl with hypothesies." And I may be misquoting. He's not sympathetic at all to me. That's one of the main reasons the second act treatment of him seems more redemption than heroism.

Sorry, I wasn't clear - I don't think they ARE in love. I think Melchior convinces Wendla that it IS an act of love. That this is what you do when you want to get closer to someone. He quells her resistance. I don't really remember the specifics of the show well enough, which is frustrating when I'm trying to make a point. But they've made it so that people often can't TELL that it's rape -- they've completely romanticized it. Isn't there something in the preface to the new libretto where Steven Sater talks about how they wanted to make it less of a condemnation and more of a love story?

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Updated On: 11/19/07 at 08:33 PM

Let me start by saying I absolutely love them both.

But one is my clear favorite because it's just better. More heart, more emotion, better lyrics, stronger message. The kind of show that makes you leave the theatre thinking, "Wow. What I just watched actually CHANGED me" and just stays with you for the longest time after the curtain. The kind of show for which the experience cannot be described unless done firsthand.

That being said, RENT. Hands down. In my eyes, no musical will ever come close.

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While this doubtless can be attributed to personal preference, I find Rent's characters so much more appealing than Spring Awakening. That is to say, I care about the Rent characters. I was extremely disappointed that I couldn't bring myself to care about anyone in SA besides Mortiz. I felt nothing, nothing, except for his death - I formed no emotional attachment to either Melchior or Wendla, and Martha was so underdeveloped that it was impossible to connect with her anyway. For all their imperfections, I find the Rent characters infinitely more sympathetic, realistic, and inherently human. Of course, this conception of "character" transcends individual performances to a certain extent, but even disregarding performances does not change my opinion about SA characters.

As SporkGoddess said, both shows have their flaws, but Spring Awakening is much better in my opinion.

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Seeing RENT was the worst night of theatre I've ever experienced in my entire life.

I've seen crappy community theatre better than the RENT tour. Everyone in RENT sounded like they were dying, and I don't think it was supposed to sound like that.

And having a character live doesn't mean its about life. She lives for that second, but she'll die, along with everyone else.

Life is death. You can't separate the two, no matter how hard you try.

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I would like to say first off that I thoroughly enjoy both musicals and have the full soundtracks on my ipod.

That being said, I feel that Spring Awakening does not deserve to be called a musical, and that, while it is a wonderful show, the people of the theatre community should detest it. Producers who believe all of that crap about "why are they singing" "the audience won't get it" "no modern day audience will understand singing" are killing the beautiful art of Musical Theatre.

Spring Awakening set out to do something completely new and innovative. They did not stop to think about the old. what they did create is certainly new, and unique and innovative, but for being based on such an old play, it fails to mix the old and the new.

Rent, however, blends old and new almost seamlessly and with a much purer political purpose than Spring Awakening. It is handled tastefully, but isn't watered down. The traditional style of musical theatre is blended with Rock music. Rent forever changed the world of Musical theatre.

End result is that Rent is an opera and Spring Awakening is a Play where the characters happen to do a little bit of singing.
This is the reason why rent has lasted over ten years and Spring Awakening, well, we will see.

Rent is better.

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I saw both shows within weeks of their Broadway opening, with their original casts, so I have some basis for camparison.

Both knocked my socks off, electrified me, got me interested in Broadway again, and were like nothing I had seen before. I've seen both several times. Have listened to both OCRs dozens of times.

If I HAD to choose....

it would be.....

drum roll....

Spring Awakening.

With Rent, I feel like I'm being LOUDLY hit upside the head...in a good way...but still...Whereas with Spring Awakening (OK I'm gonna get flamed for this, but it was my original thought upon seeing it) was that it was a more intimate, subtle piece, with better direction, lighting, staging, etc. then Rent. Rent to me is a glorious, unfinished-looking/sounding mess, whereas I found SA to be more controlled, more thought-out (for better or worse), and with a more sophisticated score. It took some risks that, for ME, worked brilliantly. (BTW, I am a 46-year-old man, not some young fangirl, LOL.)