(no subject)
When I was 16, my boyfriend went in to the city on a Friday afternoon to sleep out all night to get tickets for us to go to the theater the next night. We were going to go see Rent, which is about to end its run at the Nederlander theater, after over ten years and several cast changes.
It was 1996, and Jonathan Larsen had just died. Rent was being hailed as the voice of "the modern youth," although even at 16 I could tell that perhaps "will you light my candle" was not really a romantic catchphrase ("will you enable my drug addiction" not being precisely what I want as a conversation starter). Now it's being accused of being "dated," because of course these kids couldn't afford to live in the East Village. I agree that it's dated, but real estate isn't the reason -- just relocate to Bushwick or something (although I'll point out that the characters in the play couldn't afford to live in the East Village at the time either, that being the whole point of the title track).
No, what I think isn't resonating with the 16-year-olds today is the theme. The big thing in Rent is this notion of "no day like today" -- the idea that you could just die at any time, so you'd better enjoy what you've got, build a community, do your best to find some people to love while you were still around to do it. In 1996, if you'd gone into a high school classroom and asked everyone who knew someone who had died of AIDS, or were at least close enough to it to be scared, to put their hands up, you'd probably have gotten near 100%. AZT was a miracle drug and it didn't work that well. Today? Today AIDS is the name for a flare-up of a manageable condition called HIV-disease, sort of like cold sores are a flare up of herpes. You take your anti-retrovirals, and they mostly work. Today, no matter how obscure your interests or how lonely you might be, you can find somewhere online where you can be accepted. Just because your friends have gone away doesn't mean you're all alone.
Apparently the new thing is Spring Awakening, a rock remake of a play from 1891. (No, I didn't get those internal numbers backwards. Seriously.) Instead of homosexuality, AIDS, political activism, and community building, we've got masturbation, teen pregnancy, underground abortions, and suicide. Meanwhile, Rent is apparently moving on to being performed on the high school musical level. I'm not actually sure that's a bad thing -- at least it means that what used to be transgressive and shocking (lesbians kissing! crossdressing! people with AIDS having sex!) is now just... normal.
I can't say I'm sorry we've moved on to new transgressions (except in that I think what we've moved on to is more dangerous, being less easy to identify and fight). Unfortunately, I don't think anything in Spring Awakening is all that subversive -- no one's going to change the world by pointing out that teenagers have sex. (Did anyone not part of the religious right miss that memo?) I'm not saying that Rent changed the world, but at least it thought that we could, and that we should try. I think it's sad that today's teenage musical doesn't seem to think either of those things, and it leaves me wondering why not.
It was 1996, and Jonathan Larsen had just died. Rent was being hailed as the voice of "the modern youth," although even at 16 I could tell that perhaps "will you light my candle" was not really a romantic catchphrase ("will you enable my drug addiction" not being precisely what I want as a conversation starter). Now it's being accused of being "dated," because of course these kids couldn't afford to live in the East Village. I agree that it's dated, but real estate isn't the reason -- just relocate to Bushwick or something (although I'll point out that the characters in the play couldn't afford to live in the East Village at the time either, that being the whole point of the title track).
No, what I think isn't resonating with the 16-year-olds today is the theme. The big thing in Rent is this notion of "no day like today" -- the idea that you could just die at any time, so you'd better enjoy what you've got, build a community, do your best to find some people to love while you were still around to do it. In 1996, if you'd gone into a high school classroom and asked everyone who knew someone who had died of AIDS, or were at least close enough to it to be scared, to put their hands up, you'd probably have gotten near 100%. AZT was a miracle drug and it didn't work that well. Today? Today AIDS is the name for a flare-up of a manageable condition called HIV-disease, sort of like cold sores are a flare up of herpes. You take your anti-retrovirals, and they mostly work. Today, no matter how obscure your interests or how lonely you might be, you can find somewhere online where you can be accepted. Just because your friends have gone away doesn't mean you're all alone.
Apparently the new thing is Spring Awakening, a rock remake of a play from 1891. (No, I didn't get those internal numbers backwards. Seriously.) Instead of homosexuality, AIDS, political activism, and community building, we've got masturbation, teen pregnancy, underground abortions, and suicide. Meanwhile, Rent is apparently moving on to being performed on the high school musical level. I'm not actually sure that's a bad thing -- at least it means that what used to be transgressive and shocking (lesbians kissing! crossdressing! people with AIDS having sex!) is now just... normal.
I can't say I'm sorry we've moved on to new transgressions (except in that I think what we've moved on to is more dangerous, being less easy to identify and fight). Unfortunately, I don't think anything in Spring Awakening is all that subversive -- no one's going to change the world by pointing out that teenagers have sex. (Did anyone not part of the religious right miss that memo?) I'm not saying that Rent changed the world, but at least it thought that we could, and that we should try. I think it's sad that today's teenage musical doesn't seem to think either of those things, and it leaves me wondering why not.