Rent Live: Life Support / Out Tonight / Another Day

838 words

6 minute read

Tune Up #1 / Voice Mail #1 / Tune Up #2 / Rent / Tune Up #3 / You Okay,  Honey? / One Song Glory / Light My Candle / Today 4 U / You'll See / Voice Mail #2 / Tango Maureen   

Life Support - Collins and Angel go to their support group meeting and so much happens:

We see the amazing Keala Settle as support group leader, Cy.  She’s warm and sweet.  She greets everyone as they want to be greeted.  We see the group has everyone from older straight white businessmen to black gay men to gender nonconforming people, showing that AIDS does not discriminate.

Once everyone has come in, the meeting begins.  Then we see that (oops) Mark has come along (taking Collins at his word that “anyone who wants to” could join them.)  Cy asks, “And you are?” and Mark stutters through a reply.

We need to talk about this, though.  In all the RENTs we’ve seen (film version, Live on Broadway and the Broadway Tour?)  This moment?  With Mark coming into the Life Support meeting with his camera has always been played for laughs.

But Jordan, as Mark, is deeply uncomfortable and it shows in every aspect of what he does here.  From his facial expressions to the fact that he’s wearing his messenger bag around the front like a shield.  Even though he lives each day with Roger (and used to live with Collins) who both have AIDS, too, Mark seems like he'd very much prefer to remain inconspicuous and is increasingly awkward until all the attention is off him.

[Jordan Fisher's Mark is uncomfortable being put on the spot at the Life Support meeting.]

The support group seems to have no qualms about 1) Letting Mark stay and 2) Letting him document the support group on film.  (Jordan Fisher-as-Mark's voice over pre-support group provides some much-needed context for the day and age this occurred.  Just how rampant the AIDS epidemic was and how new any possible treatment was.)

Knowing this (as Cy and the other group members do) we wonder if that might not have contributed to her decision to let Mark stay and film them, as well.

One of our favorite moments is when Gordon (one of the support group members) speaks up after they chorus and affirm each other about seizing each day and living it to the fullest.  Gordon says he has a problem with their credo because, “My T-cells are low.  I regret that news.”

Cy says, “Okay,” but then asks him how he feels today.  Gordon says “Okay,” and after a bit more pressing, he admits, “Best I’ve felt all year,” and Cy asks, “Then why choose fear?”  Gordon says, “I’m a New Yorker.  Fear’s my life.”

Gordon has a great solo about finding some of what they teach “suspect” because he’s used to “relying on intellect when I try to open up to what I don’t know.  Because reason says I should have died six months ago…” (During this last line, Roger joins in singing while sitting alone in his apartment.)

The group continues to affirm each other, but we love that Gordon’s feelings are not only articulated by him but validated and supported by the others.  

Out Tonight - Next, we see Mimi at work, at the Cat Scratch Club, performing a song about how she just wants to have fun, and be reckless, and break some rules.

Mimi’s youth and vulnerability are what continue to shine through with Tinashe’s Mimi.  She just seems so young.  And there’s two stanzas of her song where we get a glimpse of real insight into her character:

“In the evening I’ve got to roam

Can’t sleep in the city of neon and chrome

Feels too damn much like home

When the Spanish babies cry

So let’s find a bar

So dark we forget who we are

Where all the scars from the nevers and maybes die”

Suddenly it all makes sense...why Mimi dropped by Roger’s in the middle of the night with a candle.  Why she needs drugs to cope.  It’s just super vivid with Mimi especially that none of these friends have parental support they can trust, where they could really use a safe adult in their corner.

By the end of the number, we see Mimi has made her way back to Roger’s.

Another Day - We love this song between Mimi and Roger, where he’s angry that she barged in on him (and presumably, made him feel something for her, when he’s trying not to love anyone right now...having just lost his girlfriend…)

Mimi is undeterred and keeps trying to reach out to Roger, to bridge the gap between them.  But Roger repeatedly puts distance between them, yelling at her and shrugging off her touch.  He insists if it were “another day” they might be attracted to each other, but he’s not right now, and Mimi insists right back that there’s “No day but today.”

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