RENT
What happened on New Year's Day after the curtains to RENT fell? Was it really a happy new year? Were Maureen and Joann a blissfully happy lesbian couple? Did Roger hold Mimi until the end, right up until the day she died of AIDS? That's what we're supposed to feel when we get out of seats from the show. We've sung about those 525,600 minutes that make up a year and we're supposed to be filled with hope that the next 525,600 minutes will, in fact, be moments so dear.
But is that what really would've happened up in that dingy, cold apartment? Throughout the entire year the audience was destined to watch no one really changed, not even Angel, a guardian even in death. When dawn of January poured into alleys of New York City, Joann would still have a consuming work ethic and Maureen would still have no ethic. Roger will have finally told Mimi that he loved her, but what does that matter? When things get tough, you can guarantee he'll still flee the sick, dramatic Mimi.
One can only imagine Mimi needing Roger, vomiting from her AZT, dying of a cold and Roger won't be able to tear himself away from his life, writing the perfect song, to hold his lover as she dies. RENT sings to "forget regret," that there is "no day but today." When Roger emerges from his catatonic selfishness to find Mimi gone will he have enough sense to regret his self absorbed attitude, to realize that Mimi has no other days to live, and he has missed her life.
One day, Joann with discover another of Maureen's sordid affairs and realize that Maureen will never change and quietly, on a street corner somewhere, will tell Maureen that it's finally over. Maureen will not even have the sense to be serious and will make a joke of it. That night, probably the same night Mimi is dying if Larson's timing lives on, Maureen will realize what she's lost and call Joann, pleading with tears and silence. But what can Joann do? Lose another year to Maureen who never bothers to consider that Joann is slowly going crazy, losing trust, losing herself for Maureen? Joann will end the phone call and, while she wants to cry for days, will get up and go on with her life, hesitating every second wondering if Maureen ever would change and she could take her back.
When the curtain lowers on RENT's stage we are fooled that life has changed, that these people changed. That Mark's camera told a whole story, instead of just snapshots, little lies of hope.