Rent One Song Analysis

April 29, 1996. Rent’s opening night on Broadway at the Nederlander theater. From there on out the lives of the cast and crew of the musical would never be the same. People of all classes sit in the audience. Adam Pascal, who plays Roger in the musical, begins singing his solo: “One song glory, one song before I go. One song to leave behind. Find one song, one last refrain.” A parallel to the life of the writer of Rent, Jonathan Larson, for it was his ‘one song’.

After graduating Adelphi University with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts, everything went downhill for Larson. He had dreams of being an actor, and when that failed his dreams turned to becoming a successful playwright. He spent seven years on a play that was never produced. He wrote a monologue of his life called Tick, Tick…Boom! which was produced but short lived. He needed income and had to pick up a job at the Moondance diner, which was a job he would not be able to quit

until a few months before Rent came out. That, however, was the least of his problems.
Larson was sick. He had Marfan’s Syndrome, an inherited disease of the body’s connective tissues, tendons, cartilage, heart valves, blood vessels, and other vital parts of the body. It affects bones, eyes, lungs, skins, and the nervous system. Larson’s life was supposedly not in danger, and people with Marfan’s had the same lifespan as any person in most situations. Complications were most often prevented. However, the disease made his life harder, and less comfortable. Routine trips to the doctor added to his debt, not to mention the things the illness was doing to this body, as it caused heart problems and vision problems. However, Larson persevered, never giving up. He kept at his dream of writing a successful stage production. He was working on a new musical called Rent.
Rent was about people who were sick with AIDs; on the brink of death, and extremely poor.

The characters did not live in the nicest part of New York City, and their once friend, now landlord, wanted to evict them from their apartments. This story is very close to Larson’s own story. As far as he knew he was not in danger of dying, but nonetheless lived like his characters. He had a run down apartment, and very little money. He had to work extremely hard to eat. Many of his characters were based off his friends. One of his friends stated, in reference to the night that he told Larson he was HIV positive, “One night Jonathan was there with me, and somebody said, you know, ‘Will I lose my dignity?’ And now it’s a beautiful song.” Larson took nearly all the inspiration for Rent from his own life. The musical conveyed the message that the poorly judged group of people the musical was representing were in fact people, with lives and emotions. The characters exemplified themes of love and togetherness, as they lived a truly difficult

life.
Rent was to premier off-off-Broadway January 25, 1996. According to Jim Nicola, artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, “...I do think of theatre as sort of an Olympic event. It's a rare moment in one's life when you really push way beyond what you think your endurance is. That's what Jon did.” Little could he have known the impact it would have made on people and society, but he wanted to deliver his musical, which represented everything he wanted express to the world. He was too committed to those goals to give up on them.
Unfortunately, he never lived to see his masterpiece.
Less than twenty four hours before the premier of Rent, Jonathan Larson was found on the floor of his apartment, dead of an aortic aneurysm. A hospital had misdiagnosed him, and the foot long tear of his aorta was not detected in time to save him. Everyone Larson knew was grieving, especially the cast and crew of Rent, his friends, and his family. The director of Rent, Michael Greif, decided that the show would go on as planned, but the cast member would sing as opposed to staging the entire show. Only the family and friends of Larson would be invited to the show. Everyone wanted to keep this experience among the people Larson loved, to represent who he was as a person, as he valued everyone he knew. One cast member, Daphne Rubin Vega stated, “This has been an insane experience--it's like having been struck by a bolt of lightning I just wish Jonathan were here. He's the one person responsible for all of this… [and] he's not here to enjoy it with us.”
Rent became the hottest ticket in town in no time. It was not long until it was ready to move to Broadway. When it opened there, no one wanted to let the late Larson down, and the director and cast stayed true to his wishes for the show. One of his most significant wishes was to sell inexpensive tickets for those who could not normally afford a Broadway show; the people Rent was representing. Money was not the biggest factor for Larson. He wanted everyone to be able to access the theater. His altruism extended to many other shows, as he started a chain reaction, opening up Broadway to a whole new group of people with the reduced prices. He lead the theater into something new even after his death. However, what was even more important was the impact Rent had on the people who saw it.
As one reviewer put it, “Rent is about living in the moment. It’s about overcoming isolation to achieve connection. It’s about embracing love of all kinds. It’s about learning to deal with the fear that comes with living life and awaiting death. What I saw was personally revolutionary. The healing process from the death of a loved one is typically a long and winding one. That certainly was the case for me. And I had been getting better, but what happened that night gave me the perspective I needed to lift myself out of my grief and realize that life is a gift.” Rent helped this individual move forward in their life, as well as helped many people who were in troubling times. It portrayed messages that everybody could relate to. Larson once stated, “With this work, I celebrate my friends and the many others who continue to fulfill their dreams and live their lives… In these dangerous times, where it seems that the world is ripping apart at the seams, we all can learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face every day and [we] should reach out to each other and bond as a community, rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium.”
Larson inspired many, and was inspired by others in his community as well as friends. He was committed to his work, and his altruism helped him lead the theater community into a new era with a whole new group of people. Larson was, one could say, a hero in these ways. All of this was purely because of his perseverance.
On that night, when Rent first opened, the cast could not just sit and sing like the director instructed them. They got up and acted, telling the story. They became their characters. The show affected them, too. They sang their final song, ending with the lyrics, “no day but today.” They summed up Larson. Finally, they went to go sit with the audience. Nobody left the theater, nor did they want to. Someone shouted out, “Thank you, Jonathan Larson!”
Yes. Thank you Jonathan Larson.