I always knew there were 525,600 minutes in a year, however the play Rent brings a whole new meaning to that number. For those of you who have never seen the play before, it tells an emotional story about the HIV/AIDS world and how it affects those both those who are infected and those who are not.
The acting was incredible, and it was hard to believe the actors were CU students. The director and actors did a wonderful job expressing the story of the production: the musical portrays the life of impoverished young adults living in New York’s lower East Side. The plot reveals how these struggling artists are coping with having HIV/AIDS. The director tugs at your heartstrings in expressing these everyday battles, emphasizing their toils with love, sexuality, drugs and paying rent. The director most likely wanted to speak up about these specific social issues, hoping that the audience would realize just how harsh the lives of these HIV-infected people were and are.
The scenery on the stage was very accurate to what lower East Side might have looked like in the 1980’s and all of the costumes did a great job portraying the personalities of every character. For example, I could tell that Mimi was an exotic dancer, Roger was a rock and roll freak, and Angel was a cross-dresser from the moment they walked on stage. More specifically, I even thought all of the actors represented their characters exactly. Overall, I felt that the production successfully conveyed the director’s message and made it easy for the audience to truly understand every element of the play.
It is truly inspiring knowing that the actors are only college students and have already accomplished so much. I really had to respect the actors because they are students just like me, and on top of that they work so hard to create worthwhile musical productions. Now that I’ve seen the play, I want to watch the movie version of Rent and compare how similar the two productions are.
All in all, I thought the play was a huge success. It was definitely better than I had imagined, and it was a struggle to keep myself from singing songs from the musical as I left the theater. I thought that all of the actors and everyone behind the scenes did a remarkable job and was impressed with all of their talent. Seeing this play also opened my eyes to the lifelong struggles that were presented in the story line, and made me realize that all of them are still occurring today. After watching this performance, I would definitely recommend that everyone see at least one version of this incredible story.