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Home , A Chorus Line, Hairspray (musical), Henri Murger, Jonathan Larson, Kevin McCollum, Rent (musical)

Contemporary Review, Vol. 16(4), 2006, 419 – 438

Of Fire, Death, and Desire: Transgression and Carnival in ’s

Judith Sebesta

Carnival is the festival of all-annihilating and all-renewing time . . . And all carnivalistic symbols are of such a sort they always include within themselves a perspective of negation (death) or vice versa. Birth is fraught 1 1. Mikhail Bakhtin, with death, and death with new birth. ‘Carnival and the Carnivalesque’, in John Storey (ed.), In these dangerous times, where it seems that the world is ripping apart at Cultural Theory and the seams, we all can learn how to survive from those who stare death Popular Culture: A Reader (London: squarely in the face every day and [we] should reach out to each other and Prentice Hall, 1998), bond as a community, rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of pp. 250–259 (p. 252). the millennium.2

2. Jonathan Larson, quoted in Evelyn The latter statement, written by Larson shortly before his death and McDonnell, Rent found on his computer, echoes Bakhtin’s own ideas on the conflation of (New York: Weisbach- Morrow, 1997), death with renewal, particularly when taken within the context of p. 139. Larson’s own death of an aortic aneurysm on 25 January 1996, after the final dress rehearsal of Rent.3 In spite of widespread critical acclaim 3. I presented an earlier heaped on the show, including a glowing review by in the draft of this essay at the 1997 Meeting of New York Times, a , six Drama Desk awards, the Association for three Obies, and four Tonys, including Best Musical, some critics Theatre in Higher Education in ; dismissed the phenomenal popularity of the musical as mere sentimental thank you to David reaction to the poignancy of Larson’s premature death at thirty-five. For Roma´n for his them, the birth of Rent as a musical hit would never have happened had comments there. I 4 would also like to it not been for the death of its creator. thank the editors of But the hype, both positive and negative, died down (but not this journal for their insightful suggestions; the popularity), other, more complex criticisms of the musical often performance artist Tim compared to began to surface. The most scathing and extensive has Miller for his been playwright and fiction author ’s book-length

Contemporary Theatre Review ISSN 1048-6801 print/ISSN 1477-2264 online Ó 2006 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/10486800600923960 420

encouraging words to accusation that Rent oversimplifies and commodifies images of gays, me regarding the value of Rent; theorist John , and AIDS. In Stage Struck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Lutterbie for his Gay America, Schulman first argues that Larson plagiarized much of the helpful comments on drafts; and the story of Rent, ostensibly based primarily on ’s La graduate students in Bohe`me, as well as ’s novel Sce`nes de la vie de Bohe`me, from my Contemporary her 1987 novel People in Trouble.5 Schulman’s description of her Theatre course at the University of Arizona attempts to hold Larson’s estate responsible leads to her second for their thoughts on argument that even more insidious than the plagiarism are Larson’s Rent in class discussions. ‘sinister’ distortion of the history of AIDS and his commodification of AIDS and homosexual culture. This essay will counter her – and others’ – 4. See, for example, accusations with the claim that the musical in actuality is quite Robert Brustein’s transgressive, presenting complex and subversive themes, images, and vituperative review ‘The New Bohemians’ characters that in many ways defy typical commodifica- in The New Republic tion and reification of ‘traditional’ values. In order to support this claim, (26 April 1996), pp. 29–31; with I will examine Rent through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on customary bluntness carnival and the carnivalesque, from its use of carnivalistic space, to the he writes, ‘I hope it will not be construed ways that Larson’s show subverts hierarchies, to profanation and parody, as coldhearted when I to its images of the ‘grotesque body’. While acknowledging that, in spite say that his [Larson’s] of its non profit, off-Broadway beginnings, Rent is ultimately a death was also a sad day for contemporary commercial, Broadway product, one can better understand, through criticism, being this lens, Larson’s incisive attempts to create a utopic world where ‘in our another instance of how it can be hobbled desensitised [sic] society, the artists, the bohemians, poor, discarded, by extra-artistic ‘‘others’’, recovering addicts – all are more in touch with their human- considerations’ ness than the so called mainstream’.6 (p. 29). See also Mark Steyn, ‘‘‘Rent’’ Subsidy’, New Criterion (May 1996), pp. 42ff., and Frances SCHULMAN AND OTHER DETRACTORS Davis, ‘Victim Kitsch’, Atlantic Monthly Sarah Schulman is a New York-based playwright, novelist, (September 1996), pp. 98ff. nonfiction writer and activist. Her publications include People in Trouble, Shimmer, and My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life during the 5. Sarah Schulman, Stage Bush/Reagan Years, as well as articles in the Village Voice,theNation, Struck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of and . In February 1996, Schulman reviewed Rent for Gay America the New York Press, recognizing a number of plot and character (Durham, NC: Duke similarities between it and her 1987 novel . That both University Press, People in Trouble 1998). are set in the East Village milieu of AIDS, , , and artists, and both involve a love triangle between a straight couple and 6. Larson quoted in the woman’s lesbian lover, could easily be coincidental. But further plot McDonnell, Rent, p. 138. parallels as well as other evidence are suggestive of extra-coincidental similarities between the book and the musical. As Schulman describes:

. The woman in the middle, in both pieces, is a performance artist who does a performance that defeats the greedy landlord evicting people with AIDS, which serves as a cathartic plot point for both works. In People in Trouble the landlord dies, in Rent, he changes his ways. . In both pieces there is an interracial gay male couple where one partner dies of AIDS. In both works this death is a cathartic plot point. . Both contain a scene where the lesbian meets the straight guy and they form some kind of strained relationship. 421

. In both, the lesbian couple become [sic] involved with people organizing to defend people with AIDS. In People in Trouble an AIDS activist group steals credit cards to feed the poor. In Rent, a gay 7 7. Schulman, Stage man programs an ATM machine for similar purposes. Struck, p. 15. Furthermore, Schulman claims that in 1994, librettist reportedly asked Larson, upon hearing that Larson was at work on a musical about bohemians on the Lower Eastside, ‘Oh, have you read People in Trouble, by Sarah Schulman?’ ‘Yes’, Larson replied. ‘I’m 8 8. Ibid., p. 13. using it’. Two more pieces of evidence that Schulman presents involve the anachronistic use of AZT alarms and the contributions of the director and dramaturg. In Rent, Larson depicts alarms going off in public places reminding people to take their AZT. Schulman claims that Larson could have only gotten this detail from her book:

[I]n 1987 when I was writing People in Trouble, AZT was taken every four hours, so people needed watch alarms. But, in 1992 when Larson was writing Rent, AZT was prescribed to be taken every twelve hours, so there could be no watch alarms. It was a detail Larson could only have gotten from one place – my novel. He wouldn’t have observed it in 1992, because it was no longer there to observe. And my book was the first place it was 9 9. Ibid., p. 23–24. ever articulated as a cultural marker.

Finally, according to Schulman, when , who contributed the original concept and some lyrics, collaborated with Larson early in the project, ‘none of the content that overlaps with People in Trouble was in the project’, and both director Michael Grief and dramaturg Lynn Thomson assert that the overlapping content already existed when they joined the show. ‘This leaves . . . the inclusion of the infringing material 10 10. Ibid., p. 36. in the hands of Larson’. Perhaps. But the evidence that Schulman uses Paralleling Shulman’s to substantiate the latter three claims is built on a weak foundation of claims were Thomson’s claims that hearsay and lack of sources (none are cited). This weak foundation as it as dramaturg, she was pertains to Schulman’s assertion of plagiarism is outside the bounds of entitled to recognition 11 of co-authorship and a this essay, so I will not attempt to deconstruct that foundation here. percentage of the However, it does set the tone for the rest of Schulman’s arguments profits. Although she regarding the oversimplification and commodification of images of gay had no written contract, she filed a and lesbian culture and AIDS history. suit against Larson’s Schulman levels a number of specific accusations at Rent. The first is estate based on verbal agreements made with that the lesbian characters, Maureen and Joanne, are bitchy and over- Larson before his simplified: ‘Rent acknowledges that lesbians exist; therefore it claims to death. The suit became a watershed be tolerant. The fact that it repeatedly inscribes lesbian relationships as case in the protection unstable, bickering, and emotionally pathological is the required of the rights of conceit’.12 In fact, a large part of her difficulties with the show lie in dramaturgs. It was eventually settled out its creation by a heterosexual man and the straight perspective from of court. which he approaches the material, portraying heterosexual love as true love, and, conversely, homosexual love as ‘either doomed or shallow or 11. This foundation is 13 weakened by several both’. For Schulman, the dilemma that the show presents is rooted problems within the firmly in the age-old dilemma of authenticity: how accurately can an artist book. As stated, the portray the Other? Not very, she argues: ‘What is most insidious about 422

author cites no this pervasive school of work is that it maintains a liberal veneer by simply sources. Since she is primarily a writer in including outsider characters in the world of the , which then stands the popular, not in stark contrast to their invisibility historically’.14 According to scholarly, press, this could be excused; Schulman, this ‘school of work’ inaccurately portrays and distorts the however, it becomes lives of people with AIDS and anyone involved with them, homosexuals, highly problematic artists, and people of color, who are ‘simultaneously omnipresent and when, for example, 15 Schulman quotes ignored’. The suggested motive behind such distortion is largely Marcuse but gives no economic: to mainstream the marginal; to whitewash the rough walls; to source so that the 16 reader can check make the transgressive palatable; to sell tickets. accuracy (p. 71). Even Schulman is certainly not alone in her criticisms of the musical. Robert worse is her lack of evidence to support Brustein was one of the first critics in the popular press at the time of some fairly Rent’s opening to suggest that Rent did not deserve the critical acclaim it controversial claims, had already garnered: ‘[Rent] fail(s) to penetrate very deeply beneath a such as her assertions 17 that lesbian incomes colorful and exotic surface’ and exploits AIDS ‘for mawkish purposes’. are lower than those Mark Steyn of the New Criterion followed with ‘Inclusive? Rent is the for female heterosexuals and that very opposite . . . [I]t explicitly excludes all those dumb schmucks for large numbers of whom sex and drugs and AIDS raise more complicated issues than the lesbians are residents right to rampant self-indulgence’.18 Francis Davis of the Atlantic in homeless shelters. Her evidence? ‘I’ve Monthly scathingly accused: ‘Rent neutralizes and mainstreams avant- heard from a number garde victim art by sentimentalizing it into what I’m tempted to call of people’ (p. 109). 19 The evidential victim kitsch’. And Evelyn McDonnell of the Village Voice argued: foundation is further ‘The play’s biggest fault is that two of the main characters are straight compromised by a white guys – for the umpteenth time, the stories of ‘‘others’’ are made variety of more minor but still telling textual palatable by a dominant-voice narration. Sometimes Larson strains too mistakes and biases: hard to show how ‘‘cool’’ and ‘‘progressive’’ his characters are to have Schulman misspells 20 ‘Chekhov’ (she spells gay, black, and Latino ’. it ‘Checkov’) and More scholarly criticisms have followed in articles and several book- ‘Lynn Thomson’ (she spells it Thompson); length works. In ‘Rent’s Due: Multiculturalism and the Spectacle of refers to the gay, Difference’, David Savran takes the musical to task for exploiting racial black, homeless math and sexual minorities, for its ‘empty gestures of rebellion’.21 The essay’s professor character in Rent as ‘Benny’ when larger project is the exposure of the weaknesses of multiculturalism in the his name is Tom ; the author deconstructs Rent as the ‘epitome of Collins; and reveals a 22 raging bias against multiculturalism, in all its deceptive charm’. None of the books focus graduate education as on the musical specifically, as Stage Struck does, but each author she compares it to obviously felt the need to devote a section to a discussion of Rent within Rent: ‘I hate the snobbish, market- the context of the book’s larger themes. David Roma´n, in Acts of oriented culture of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS, includes an after- mediocrity these [MFA writing] ward titled ‘Rent’s Due’; in it, he claims that ‘AIDS is so ubiquitous in programs are Rent that it is no longer even dramatic’; for Roma´n, AIDS is not creating . . . It’s a sad overlooked in , but it is .23 John Clum, in narrative arc from the Rent unexamined Something for WPA to NEA to MFA’ the Boys: Musical Theatre and Gay Culture, writes that Rent ‘irresponsibly (p. 43). She goes on to romanticizes abuse’ and makes AIDS ‘cool’ and being poor claim that MFA 24 writing programs and ‘chic’. His conclusion: ‘Rent has gay characters, but it isn’t really Rent reflect ‘the gay’.25 Jill Dolan briefly turns a harsh, critical high beam on the musical power of institutions to normalize privilege, in her Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and to homogenize Performance: aesthetics’ (p. 44). As a critic, I find Rent’s values and its commodification appalling. I believe 12. Schulman, Stage Struck, p. 71. Rent’s book demeans performance art as trite and ineffectual, offers no coherent politic about homelessness or HIV/AIDS, or about the difficulty 423

13. Ibid., p. 101. of creating alternative art, and fails to truly imagine relationships outside of a coupled, traditionally gendered norm, whether queer or not.26 14. Ibid., p. 71.

15. Ibid., p. 80. Clearly, in spite of the weaknesses of and inaccuracies and biases in her book, Schulman is not alone in her criticism of Larson’s musical. 16. Interestingly, in spite of Schulman’s criticism of Larson, and her sympathy with RENT AS CARNIVAL Thomson, she blames the latter for the whitewashing, Numerous writers, even some of the latter, have refuted Schulman’s suggesting that Rent, claims and argued for the complexity, on many levels, of Larson’s show. as Larson originally wrote it, was closer in For example, Peter Galvin of the Advocate praises Rent for its ‘truth’ regarding images of nonchalant, unstereotypical treatment of homosexuality. In fact, such is homosexuality and AIDS, and implying the degree of Larson’s unqualified empathy for his gay and lesbian that Thomson’s characters that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t gay himself (he wasn’t). A rare changes ‘straightened’ it out. commodity in today’s world of bloated Broadway spectacles, this combination of realism and humanism is a major reason for the 17. Brustein, ‘Bohemians’, extraordinary success of this little-musical-that-could. . . . [S]eeing same- p. 30. sex couples unabashedly declaring their love for each other on the musical stage is truly a thrilling sight.27 18. Steyn, ‘‘‘Rent’’ Subsidy’, pp. 44–45. Steyn expands on this Stefani Eads writes in POZ, a magazine for people with AIDS, criticism in his book Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals In Rent, AIDS isn’t a metaphor for the end of the century, the end of the Then & Now (New world, the end of anything. AIDS just is. It’s not pitied, it’s not pampered, York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 207–211. and it’s not ignored. Nor is it trivialized, but by facing AIDS as yet another of life’s endless uncertainties, Rent’s HIV positive pairings, Mimi and 19. Davis, ‘Victim’, Roger, and Angel (Wilson Heredia) and Tom (Jesse Martin), love each p. 106. other with a sexual that not only turns on Broadway audiences, but brings them to their feet.28 20. Evelyn McDonnell, ‘Not Just a Fable, a Testament: Rent Even Roma´n and Dolan, both highly critical of some aspects of the show, Moves from Alphabet City to Broadway’, qualify that criticism, revealing mixed emotions; Dolan admits that she Village Voice (30 April was moved by Rent: ‘Although I couldn’t quite identify with its 1996), pp. 27–30. characters, the fact of their queerness was implicitly validating and made me feel somehow visible, watching the show. The score compelled me 21. David Savran, ‘Rent’s Due: Multiculturalism emotionally; I tapped my feet, I bought the cast album, and I still sing and the Spectacle of along when it plays’.29 But even Dolan’s admission of an emotional Difference’, Journal of American Drama and attachment is not an argument for the complexity of the musical. Roma´n Theatre, 14 (Winter moves, rightfully, I believe, closer to the reality of the musical when he 2002), 1–14 (p. 13). argues that Rent deserves more than the banalization and commodifica- tion of the show that has occurred in the popular press because of the 22. Savran, ‘Rent’s Due’, p. 3. complexities inherent in the musical, particularly as relates to community. Eads echoes Roma´n in his argument that although Rent is not being sold 23. David Roma´n, Acts of or bought as an AIDS play, it is not the fault of the show, pointing out Intervention: Performance, Gay that it has four HIV positive characters, and that no one associated with 30 Culture, and AIDS the show ‘shies away from it off-stage or on’. (Bloomington: Many of Schulman’s, and others’, arguments regarding commodifica- Indiana University tion should have been aimed not at the musical but at those responsible 424

Press, 1997), for marketing it. I will address this later. But I would like to turn to the p. 272. numerous arguments against Rent as a complex show. Perhaps one could 24. John M. Clum, claim that in its representation of gays, lesbians, and people with AIDS, Something for the Boys: Larson’s show did not go far enough. But I would argue that in this, and Musical Theatre and Gay Culture (New in other aspects, Rent went further than most musicals before it, York: Palgrave, 1999), presenting multi-layered, complex issues, points-of-view, and characters pp. 272–273. rarely seen on the musical stage. One way to understand these aspects is to view the show through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on 25. Clum, Something, p. 274. carnival and the carnivalesque. In Rabelais and His World and ‘Carnival and the Carnivalesque’, published posthumously in 1998 in Cultural 26. Jill Dolan, Geographies Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, edited by John Storey, Russian of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) recoups and Performance the concept of ‘carnival’, explicitly in the Middle Ages but implicitly in (Middletown, CT: more modern-day manifestations like May Day celebrations, Mardi Gras, Wesleyan University Press, 2001), p. 110. and Day of the Dead, as a complex, meaningful historic tradition, transposing it into the language of literature (the carnivalization of 27. Peter Galvin, ‘New literature). For Bakhtin, carnival is a low culture, populist critique of Bohemians’, Advocate (30 April 1996), hegemonic high culture through the inversion of hierarchies: pp. 58–59. As opposed to the official feast, one might say that carnival celebrates 28. Stefani Eads, ‘Rent temporary liberation from the prevailing truth of the established order; it Collection’, POZ (/September marks the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms and 1996), p. 56. prohibitions. Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and 29. Dolan, Geographies, complete.31 p. 110.

30. Eads, ‘Rent Bakhtin outlines four basic carnivalistic categories. In the first, there is Collection’, p. 56. free and familiar among people, with distance suspended. Even Evelyn McDonnell’s criticism, Second, heirarchies are suspended in favor of the trying-on of new quoted above, relationships between and among individuals. Eccentricity, those aspects becomes watered of character usually deemed abnormal, is allowed. Third, ‘carnivalistic down in the face of the fact that she eventually mesalliances’, the amalgamation of formerly separate binaries, are became the chosen allowed: ‘Carnival brings together, unifies, weds, and combines the one to document the musical’s history in the sacred with the profane, the lofty with the low, the great with the official ‘coffee-table’ insignificant, the wise with the stupid’.32 Fourth, profanation is book of the show. Slick, graphically encouraged, e.g. parodies of sacred texts, ‘obscenities linked with the interesting, and filled reproductive power of the earth and the body’, ‘debasings and bringings with interviews with down to earth’.33 the creators of Rent as well as friends and Other aspects of Bakhtin’s carnival include carnivalistic acts; ambiva- family of Larson, the lent, often dualistic images; and carnivalistic space. The mock crowning book has clearly been sanctioned by Larson’s and subsequent decrowning of the carnival king are ritual acts that estate and is almost represent the ‘pathos of shifts and changes, of death and renewal’. irresponsibly one- Carnival celebrates the shift itself, process over product, and proclaims sided. Nowhere are 34 McDonnell’s original the joyful relativity of everything. Similar, concurrent acts include reservations evident. disguise, verbal debates, cursing matches, and exchanges of gifts. Still, the copious interviews included in Ambivalent, dualistic carnival images include birth and death, blessing it are extremely useful. and curse, praise and abuse, youth and old age, top and bottom, etc. The pairing of similar or contrasting images, and the utilization of things in 31. Mikhail Bakhtin, reverse (connected to eccentricity), is common. Deeply ambivalent is the Rabelais and His image of fire. Other images include laughter, often directed toward 425

World, trans. Helene something higher; parody; and the grotesque body. Peter Stallybrass and Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Allon White provide a vivid, scatologically-suggestive description of the 1968), p. 109. carnivalistic body as:

32. Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Carnival and the multiple, bulging, over-or under-sized, protuberant and incomplete. The Carnivalesque’, openings and orifices of this carnival body are emphasized, not its closure p. 251. and finish. It is an image of impure corporeal bulk with its orifices (mouth, flared nostrils, anus) yawning wide and its lower regions (belly, legs, feet, 33. Ibid. buttocks and genitals) given priority over its upper regions (head, ‘spirit’, 35 34. Ibid., pp. 252–253. reason).

35. Peter Stallybrass and Bakhtin emphasizes the fertile, abundant, communal body, always in Allon White, The process and becoming. The most important events for the grotesque Politics and Poetics of Transgression body include ‘[e]ating, drinking, defecation and other elimination (London: Methuen, (sweating, blowing of the nose, sneezing), as well as copulation, 1986), p. 9. pregnancy, dismemberment, swallowing up by another body’.36 Another 36. Bakhtin, Rabelais and important carnival feature is its use of space, from its sense of a great city His World, p. 317. (e.g. or London), to its utilization of the square and the streets adjoining it. Since carnival belongs to everyone, and is a very public act, and the ‘public square was the symbol of communal performance’, it is 37 37. Bakhtin, ‘Carnival’, the natural location for carnival. Other places of action can take on p. 255. carnivalesque significance ‘if they become meeting- and contact-points for heterogeneous people’.38 38. Ibid., p. 256. But making connections between Bakhtin’s theories on carnival and Larson’s musical are problematized by the fact that Bakhtin argues that traditional theatre and drama cannot be viewed as carnival. He writes, ‘Carnival is a pageant without footlights and without a division into 39 39. Ibid., p. 250. performers and spectators’. He admits that some forms of modern theatre retain certain aspects of carnival: ‘Something of the carnival atmosphere is retained, under certain conditions, among the so-called bohemians, but here in most cases we are dealing with the degradation and trivialization of the carnival sense of the world (there is, for example, 40 40. Ibid., pp. 257–258. not a grain of that carnival spirit of communal performance)’. For Bakhtin, traditional, mainstream theatre (read theatre with a Wagnerian separation of spectator and performer by such devices as the proscenium arch separated from the audience by the ‘mystic chasm’ created by the orchestra pit and the darkened auditorium) excludes the true participa- tory requirement of carnival. It also lacks the dialogism inherent in 41 41. ‘Dialogism’ equals carnival. Essentially, carnival is subversive in its very differences from ‘double-voicedness’ to drama. However, he does concede that medieval mystery plays and Bakhtin, although his precise meanings are Shakespeare represent carnivalesque images. And numerous historians somewhat ambiguous. and theorists after Bakhtin have applied his theories fairly generously to However, he claims 42 that dramatic action is theatre. According to Michael D. Bristol in Carnival and Theater,for inherently monologic example, ‘Bakhtin’s concepts of heteroglossia and Carnival, his interest in in its resolution of all mimicry and indirect discourse, and his appreciation of the informally dialogic oppositions: ‘A true multiplicity of organized social life of the public square, all seem to imply that theater is levels would destroy the most vital institutional setting for literary and verbal creativity’.43 drama, because dramatic action, The retention of a ‘carnival atmosphere . . . among the so-called relying as it does upon bohemians’ hedged begrudgingly by Bakhtin above is precisely the kind the unity of the world, of atmosphere Larson attempted to capture in his show. Rent itself is a 426

could not link those musical meeting place for heterogeneous people; Larson’s very vision was levels together or resolve them’. See Sue an obviously utopian one intended to create a world inhabited by Vice, Introducing ‘bohemians’. This now rather ubiquitous, watered-down term deserves a Bakhtin (, Manchester University bit of consideration at this point. It reflects the perception of the French Press), p. 187. in the nineteenth century that gypsies had come from Bohemia, a Czech Furthermore, he province. Viewing gypsies as outsiders apart from conventional society, a argues that drama cannot be dialogic group of artists and writers in nineteenth century Paris co-opted the term because it lacks the to describe their own disenfranchisement from mainstream, conventional fictional narrator. life and search for a utopian artistic community, a co-option passionately 42. See, for example, embraced by the author of Larson’s primary source material. Subsequent Robert Cunliffe, ‘The use of the term has come to refer to anyone or anything outside the Architectonics of mainstream who embodies subversion of mainstream cultural hierarchies Carnival and Drama in Bakhtin, Artaud, and not yet possible in the ‘real’ world, an embodiment often viewed as Brecht’, in David coupled with a sort of self-induced poverty. Shepherd (ed.), Bakhtin, Carnival, Larson’s own life seemed a study in of the ‘bohemian artist’ and Other Subjects, according to such broader uses of the term, at least after he left both his Critical Studies 3(2)– 4(1/2) (Amsterdam: comfortable home in White Plains, New York, and then Adelphi Rodopi, 1993) 48–69; University with BA in hand, at which point he lived in a run-down Cunliffe, ‘Bakhtin and apartment on with ever-changing roommates and a Derrida: Drama and the Phoneyness of the kitchen with a bathtub in it. For -and-a-half years, Larson worked at Phone`’, in Carol the Moondance Diner to support his musical habits. His father, Al Adlam et al. (eds), Face to Face: Bakhtin Larson, describes his son’s life during this time: in and the West (Sheffield: Sheffield I could get into a debate about what is ‘bohemian’, but he was certainly a Academic Press, 1997), pp. 347–365; starving artist. He worked his butt off from the time he got out of college. and Halina Filipowicz, He was not a dilettante. He didn’t have the idea the world owed him a ‘A Polish Expedition to ’, Drama living. He was doing what he wanted to do, and he was essentially self- Review, 31:1 (1987), supporting. He was deeply in hock. One of my major regrets is that I never 137–165. knew just how tight things were for him.44

43. Michael D. Bristol, Carnival and Theater: His circle of friends included people of a variety of races/ethnicities and Plebeian Culture and sexualities; for them, Larson and his roommate Ann Egan would host the Structure of Authority in elaborate annual potluck dinners they called ‘Peasant Feasts’. According Renaissance England to Egan, ‘You’d invite everyone, from close friends and people in the (New York: Methuen, neighborhood to someone you’d just met on the way home from the 1985), p. 23. supermarket. It was like theater itself; the ambience of festivity covered all 45 44. Quoted in the dinginess’. Out of this very communal vision of actual life grew McDonnell, Rent, Larson’s utopian vision of musical life in Rent. p. 11. The PBS documentary Bakhtin mentions the ‘sense of a great city’ (e.g. Paris or London) and Broadway: The the utilization of the town square and the streets adjoining it as American Musical, important features of carnival. In , this ‘great city’ is obviously New contains poignant Rent video footage of York City. Larson grew up in a suburb just outside the city, then lived his Larson’s celebratory adult life within it. But his knowledge of the city does not translate into last day working at the Moodance Diner. the act of romanticizing it. Rent is, in a way, a celebration of its culture Dir. Michael Kantor, and uniqueness, but Larson tries to reveal ’s underbelly as DVD, Educational Broadcasting and well. In the song ‘Life Support’, one of the members of the AIDS Life Broadway Film Support group, Gordon, when pushed by the leader to reveal how he Project, 2004. feels today, admits, ‘Best I’ve felt all year’. When the leader, Paul, asks, ‘Then why choose fear?’ Gordon answers matter-of-factly, ‘I’m a New Yorker! Fear’s my life!’ In ‘Santa Fe’, Collins and Angel dream of leaving 427

45. Quoted in New York City behind to open up a restaurant in ‘sunny’ Santa Fe, McDonnell, Rent, forgetting ‘this cold Bohemian hell’: p. 14.

ANGEL: New York City – MARK: Uh-huh ANGEL: Center of the Universe COLLINS: Sing it girl – ANGEL: Times are shitty But I’m pretty sure they can’t get worse MARK: I hear you ANGEL: It’s a comfort to know When you’re singing the hit-the-road blues That anywhere else you could possibly go 46 46. All lyrics are quoted After New York would be a pleasure cruise. from McDonnell, Rent. Still, one gets the sense of Larson’s fondness for his town, particularly the area in which he lived and set his musical, the East Village, or more specifically, ‘Alphabet City’. St Mark’s Place, with its open-air bazaar, serves as Rent’s carnival square, as does the empty lot next to Mark and Roger’s building at 11th Street and . Here is where heterogeneous people meet and make contact, arguing, protesting, and 47 47. Admittedly, the celebrating. The homeless mingle with street performers, like Angel, heterogeneity of the drug dealers, the police, artists, vendors, tourists. The Life Cafe´, where area has lessened considerably since the everyone gathers after the protest, singing ‘La Vie Bohe`me’, is an actual 1980s. Larson’s vision cafe´ at 343 E. 10th Street. Posters for ‘CBGB & OMFUG’ adorn the of the East Village is clearly based more on walls in Mark and Roger’s apartment; the initials stand for Country, his experience there Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gourmandizers, a club during that decade on the Bowery that once housed Patti Smith, Blondie, the Talking than any current reality. Heads, and punk rock. In Rent, Roger’s band plays there. Riots that erupted during the 1980s in served as the inspiration for the riot that occurs at the end of Act I. This sense of place is crucial to the themes of the show, so crucial, in fact, to its creators that they decided to renovate the to look as if it were located within the on-stage milieu, preparing audiences for these images of 48 48. This attempt to bring an eclectic, urban grunge-chic world even before they enter the theatre. the East Village to Both Rent and Bakhtin’s carnival are alike in their optimism and Broadway was, not surprisingly, ridiculed utopianism, with their emphasis on the cyclical and the positive by some critics, often outcomes from it. In both, death is always linked to rebirth and in the same breath as they disparaged the renewal. Death, particularly as a result of AIDS, is clearly a primary whole ‘Disneyfication’ image in Rent; however, it moves beyond a simplistic image to become of the area. See, for a theme about how the living deal with death, and the rebirth that can example, Linda Winer, who likens the result from it. Angel’s death of AIDS in the middle of the second Act is experience to entering one of the most poignant moments of the show, particularly when an ‘East Village theme park’, in ‘A New Angel’s partner Tom sings a soulful of their love song, ‘I’ll Lease: The Prize- Cover You’. But instead of placing this death near the end, Larson Winning ‘‘Rent’’ Moves to Broadway’, leaves enough time to show Tom dealing with Angel’s death, from the Newsday (30 April funeral arrangements to his search for a meaningful existence in the face 1996), http:// of his own HIV-positive status. Some critics (and audience members, www.lifecafe.com/ features/Move.htm. judging from the response of some audience members both times I saw the show) decried Larson’s tampering with the ending of the opera, 428

49 49. But not all critics: in La Boheme,onwhichRent is based. In the opera, Mimi, the central Rebels with : female character, dies of . In Rent, she miraculously escapes Broadway’s Groundbreaking death at the hands of AIDS. Larson wrote about the necessity for the Musicals, Scott Miller change in a 1992 statement of concept: ‘Inspired, in part, by Susan argues convincingly that ‘Rent is not an Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors, the aim is to quash the already updated La Bohe`me or cliche´d ‘‘AIDS victim’’ stereotypes and point out that A. People with an adaptation; it’s a AIDS can live full lives; B. AIDS affects everyone – not just response to it’ 50 (Portsmouth, NH: homosexuals and drug abusers’. This change grew out of Larson’s Heinemann, 2001), optimism and his desire to focus on rebirth, renewal, and life instead of p. 187. death. 50. McDonnell, Rent, Larson’s attempts to show that AIDS affects everyone aligns with p. 21. Bakhtin’s first carnivalistic category: free and familiar contact among people, with distance suspended. Rent revolves around a community of heterogeneous people of different colors, sexualities, ‘classes’, (in terms of economic levels), interests, and talents: Mark, the narrator and fictional voice of Larson, a straight, white filmmaker from affluent Scarsdale; his roommate Roger, a straight, white, HIV-positive musician; Mimi Marquez, Roger’s HIV-positive, drug-addicted, Latina girlfriend from a poor, broken family who left home at 15 and at the ‘Cat Scratch Club’; Maureen, Mark’s former girlfriend, a performance artist now involved in a relationship with Joanne, a black attorney from a politically well-connected family; Tom Collins, a black former NYU math professor who is HIV positive and in love with Angel, a poor Latino queen who is also HIV-positive. Intermingling with this community are the people who inhabit the world of the East Village, specifically Alphabet City, from a chorus of homeless people to members of an AIDS support group, to Benny, a black former roommate of Roger and Mark’s who is now married to money and has become their landlord. Above all, Rent fits neatly within Bakhtin’s suspension of hierarchies in favor of the trying-on of new relationships between and among individuals. Larson’s Act I climax, ‘La Vie Boheme’, is a tribute to eccentricity, individuality, difference, and the ‘Other’:

MARK: . . . To loving tension, no pension, to more than one dimension, To starving for attention, hating convention, hating pretension, Not to mention of course, Hating dear old Mom and Dad To riding your bike, Midday past the three-piece suits – To fruits – to no absolutes – To Absolute – to choice – To the Village Voice – To any passing fad To being an us – for once – Instead of a them – ALL: La Vie Bohe`me/La Vie Bohe`me 429

In this song the whole cast comes together at the ‘Life Cafe´’ after Maureen’s performance art demonstration to protest the displacement of her friends from their building – and the homeless from an adjacent lot – by Benny, who wants to start a cyberstudio there with his father-in-law’s money. The song is a response to Benny’s pronouncement that ‘Bohemia’s dead’. But for this community, ‘Bohemia’ is very much alive and their only weapon against the attempts of the ‘mainstream’ to completely control their ‘carnivalistic space’:

ALL: To faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross- dressers too MAUREEN: To me MARK: To me COLLINS & ANGEL: To me ALL: To you, and you and you, you and you To people living with, living with, living with Not dying from disease Let he among us without sin Be the first to condemn La Vie Bohe`me, La Vie Bohe`me, La Vie Bohe`me MARK: ALL: Anyone out of the mainstream La Vie Bohe`me Is anyone in the mainstream? La Vie Bohe`me Anyone alive – with a sex drive La Vie Bohe`me Tear down the wall Aren’t we all The opposite of war isn’t peace . . . It’s creation

According to Bakhtin, during carnival all forms of inequality are suspended, and this certainly seems to be Larson’s intent, particularly in his intention to show that AIDS affects everyone, regardless of race, color, class, sexuality, etc., not unlike the plagues of Rabelais’s world. Related to this category of suspension of hierarchies is Bakhtin’s third category of carnivalistic me´salliances, in which ‘a free and familiar attitude spreads over everything: over all values, thoughts, phenomena, and things. All things that were once self-enclosed, disunified, distanced from one another by a noncarnivalistic hierarchical world- view are drawn into carnivalistic contacts and combinations’. Within these me´salliances, eccentricity serves to allow ‘in concretely sensuous form – the latent sides of human nature to reveal and express 51 51. Bakhtin, ‘Carnival’, themselves’. Certainly, ‘La Vie Bohe`me’ articulates this free and p. 251. familiar attitude, as does the rock music, with its history grounded in fears of the kind of me´salliances it might induce in teenagers, used throughout the show.52 But perhaps most related to Bakhtin’s third 430

52. Whether or not category are the various manifestations of sexual relationships, racial Larson actually alliances, and gendered identities in Rent.TheworldofRent is one in utilized rock music is a question of contention which all identities and alliances are allowed. Interracial relationships for some critics. Most are unquestioned, as represented by Tom (black) and Angel (Latino) labeled it as such, but a select few either or Maureen (white) and Joanne (black). For all the problems that these labeled the music pop couples have – dealing with AIDS, poverty, homelessness, disapproving or, like Francis Davis, parents, etc. – their racial differences is not one of them. Furthermore, compared the show to Hair, suggesting that homosexuality is celebrated, as represented by the same couples the music is standard mentioned above, particularly Tom and Angel. Although the author fare barely disguised as rock. I spends less time developing the connection between the two – Angel dies would argue that halfway into Act II – than that between Mimi and Roger, Larson created a Larson did compose rock music, but largely steady, giving, tender love between the two men that could be viewed as in his use of more sympathetic than the on-again, off-again, volatile heterosexual instruments typical of relationship. Larson wrote one of the most memorable love in recent rock: drums, keyboard, bass, and musical theatre history for Angel and Collins, ‘I’ll Cover You’: guitar, including electric guitar. Still, Rent is not written in BOTH: I think they meant it traditional rock-and- When they said you can’t buy love roll guitar keys. Now I know you can rent it A new lease you are, my love On life All my life I’ve longed to discover Something as true as this is. COLLINS: So with a thousand sweet kisses I’ll cover you

Angel buys Collins a new coat to replace the one stolen from him on the day they met; Collins protests Angel’s generosity but accepts the coat, singing,

I do not deserve you, Angel Give – give All you do is give Give me some way to show you How you’ve touched me so.

Angel responds that Collins can simply kiss him. Finally, it is quite likely that if an audience member walks out remembering only one song from Rent, it will be Collins’ heartbreaking reprise of ‘I’ll Cover You’ at Angel’s memorial service. In this song, and in Angel’s death, Larson, perhaps unconsciously, wrote the most poignant moment of the show, 53 53. Jim Nicola, the Artistic eclipsing the finale when Mimi comes back from the edge of death. Director of the New The lesbian relationship between Maureen and Joanne is more of a York Theatre Workshop, where conundrum. It has provided fodder for a number of critics, like Rent was largely Schulman, who have viewed it as a less-than-sympathetic portrayal of 431

developed, likely can lesbians. The audience first learns about Maureen through Joanne and be credited for helping to foster positive Mark, who share a caustic duet, ‘Tango Maureen’: images of gays in the piece; in the Advocate, Nicola claims, ‘It MARK: She cheated hasn’t been a JOANNE: Maureen cheated conscious MARK: Fuckin’ cheated idea . . . [b]ut a lot of the material I’m JOANNE: I’m defeated attracted to has I should give up happened to be gay or lesbian. I choose right now material that excites MARK: Gotta look on the bright side me – that makes me feel an emotional With all of your might commitment – to get JOANNE: I’d fall for her still anyhow through the long, BOTH: When you’re dancing her arduous process of producing it’. Dick You don’t stand a chance Scanlan, ‘In Profile’, Her grip of Romance Advocate (16 September 1997), Makes you fall p. 77. MARK: So you think, ‘Might as well’ JOANNE: ‘Dance a tango to hell’ BOTH: ‘At least I’ll have tangoed at all’

Maureen herself does not appear until the end of the first act. The women bicker throughout most of the rest of the show, and they are only given one song in which to develop their relationship, ‘’. Joanne, a civil rights attorney, improbably plays the willing slave to her flaky performance artist girlfriend, until Maureen cheats on Joanne, which prompts Joanne to throw out Maureen. Although they reunite and break up several times after that, the audience never learns conclusively what happens to their relationship. Apparently Larson found the development of the relationship problematic as well. According to Evelyn McDonnell, in early versions of the show, Maureen returns to Mark, paralleling the plot of La Bohe`me, but ‘that comes across as wishful thinking on a straight man’s part. In 54 54. McDonnell, Rent, fact, Jonathan had had a girlfriend who left him for a woman’. Michael p. 24. Greif, the director of Rent, concedes:

Until late in rehearsal, there were a lot of dyke issues. It was my point of view that they were the characters Jonathan had the most distance from, or the least handle on. He wasn’t seeing what Jim [Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop] and I were seeing very clearly, which was that if 55 55. Quoted in you’re writing a piece that celebrates queer life, then let the women be queer. McDonnell, Rent, p. 24. Lisa Hubbard, one of Larson’s closest friends, and a lesbian, claims that she had to talk a lot with Larson about the lesbian characters because ‘he didn’t know how pat they were’. And Shelley Dickinson, a Broadway understudy who played Joanne in the original workshop of the show, claims that ‘he made Maureen seem bitchy, period’, and that ‘Joanne 56 56. Hubbard and seemed like she was nothing better than a lapdog’. Dickinson quoted in ‘Take Me Or Leave Me’ was, according to McDonnell, probably the McDonnell, Rent, p. 24. last song Larson ever wrote. Long, problematic, the duet’s final version apparently satisfied all involved. Lisa Hubbard claimed: ‘It showed that 432

he really got it, because it stops being a song just about lesbians and 57 57. Quoted in becomes a song about a relationship that happens to be lesbian’. Still, McDonnell, Rent, the song highlights criticism that Rent objectifies women: p. 44.

MAUREEN: Every single day I walk down the street I hear people say ‘Baby’s so sweet’ Ever since puberty Everybody stares at me Boys – girls I can’t help it baby

Nevertheless, Rent does, at least, give lesbians visibility on the Broadway musical stage. How many Broadway musicals feature lesbian characters? Certainly gay men, although still not common, are no anomaly to the Broadway musical – La Cage Aux Folles, A , Bourne’s Swan Lake – perhaps because gay men have had a significant role in the behind- the-scenes creation of Broadway shows. Fewer women, not to mention 58 58. This is not to say that lesbians, have. And although some might argue that if Larson could lesbians have had no not write sympathetic lesbian identities, he should not have included part in the creation of Broadway musicals, them, I would counter with the suggestion that Larson’s lesbians are not just not as great a part entirely unsympathetic. They are strong women with successful careers as gay men, historically. This is (criticism regarding Maureen’s brand of performance art notwithstand- certainly changing as ing) and loyal friends who are unafraid to show their lust and affection for more and more (and anger at) each other in public. Their foibles, their weaknesses, are women in general become involved as no greater than those of other characters in the show, including the directors, producers, heterosexual characters. The relationship between Roger and Mimi is conductors, designers, composers, lyricists, equally volatile and probably has an equally uncertain future in the face of etc. For a discussion of Mimi’s advanced AIDS, in spite of the finale that reunites them. how the performances and lives of Mary Bakhtin’s fourth category of carnival, where ‘profanation’ is encour- Martin, Ethel aged, manifests itself in a variety of ways in Rent. First, there is the literal Merman, Julie verbal profanity that occurs quite frequently in the show. No longer Andrews, and can be co- groundbreaking since Hair filled the Broadway stage with obscenities opted for a lesbian that shocked the ‘Rodgers and Hammerstein’ crowd, the use of profanity gaze, see Stacy Wolf, A Problem Like Maria: in Larson’s show still conveys a tone of rebellion and freedom of 59 Gender and Sexuality expression. As quoted above, the song ‘Tango: Maureen’ has Mark in the American decrying how Maureen ‘Fuckin’ cheated’, as well as how ‘Fuckin’ weird’ Musical (Ann Arbor: University of it is to be speaking with Maureen’s new (lesbian) lover in the first place. Michigan Press, Another example involves the chorus of homeless, one of whose sung 2002). response to Mark’s filming of her in an effort to protest their plight is: 59. Most critics ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? I don’t need no goddamn help from mentioned Hair in some bleeding heart cameraman. . . . This lot is full of motherfucking their reviews of Rent; artists’. Less literal profanation is the profanation and parody of sacred see, for example, Ben Brantley, ‘Rock Opera ‘texts’ like Christmas and all its cultural trappings. ‘Christmas Bells’ is a A la ‘‘Bohe`me’’ and repeated mantra of holiday irony, sung by the homeless chorus: ‘‘Hair’’’, New York Times (14 February 1996), pp. C11ff.; Christmas bells are ringing Margo Jefferson, Christmas bells are ringing ‘‘‘Rent’’ is Brilliant Christmas bells are ringing 433

and Messy All at Somewhere else Once’, New York Times (25 February Not here 1996), sec. 2: pp. 5ff.; Peter Marks, ‘Looking on Broadway for a Or Bohemian Home’, New York Times Christmas bells are ringing (26 February 1996), pp. C9ff.; Frank Rich, Christmas bells are ringing ‘East Village Story’, Christmas bells are ringing New York Times (2 March 1996), p. 19; On TV – at Saks and Anthony . . . Can’t you spare a dime or two Tommasini, ‘The Seven-Year Odyssey Here but for the grace of God go you That Led to ‘‘Rent’’’, You’ll be merry New York Times I’ll be merry (17 March 1996), sec 2: pp. 7ff.. A number Tho’ merry ain’t in my vocabulary of the arguments No sleighbells made here in support of Rent as carnivalistic No Santa Claus could be applied to No yule log Hair as well, although No tinsel not as fully, I believe. No holly No hearth No SOLOIST: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer ALL FIVE: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer No Room at the Holiday Inn – oh no

During the protest in the vacant lot, police appear in riot gear, singing, ‘I’m dreaming of a white, right Christmas’. Rent’s profanation of this holiday, and subsequent exposing of all its hypocrisies, is an effective framing device in the musical, foregrounding the ‘bohemian’ fight against mainstream culture and values. Bakhtin’s carnivalistic acts – including disguise, verbal debates, cursing matches, and exchanges of gifts – all appear in some manifestation within the world of Rent. Angel’s identity as a ‘’ provides the opportunity for Larson to incorporate an image representative – to many – of transgression of mainstream notions of masculine and 60 60. I add the qualifier ‘to feminine. And Angel’s ‘disguise’ is completely unquestioned within many’ to acknowledge the world of the musical, signaling to mainstream audiences the arbitrary recent arguments that drag is no longer nature of what is ‘normative’ and what is not. Verbal (and musical) transgressive, debates include the songs ‘Tango: Maureen’, Mark and Joanne’s debate subversive, or any more performative regarding the merits of conducting a relationship with a fickle, self- than any other centered woman; and ‘What You Own’, in which Mark and Roger debate behavior. See, for the merits of connection vs. isolation, of selling out vs. being true to example, Laurence Senelick’s The one’s self, of engagement vs. disengagement, in millennium America: Changing Room,in which he argues that drag queens have MARK: Don’t breathe too deep become ‘Disneyfied Don’t think all day and safe’ and, referencing bell hooks, Dive into work that they have Drive the other way ‘allowed themselves to That drip of hurt be coopted by the That pint of shame 434

consumer culture, Goes away, just play the game thereby losing much of their subversive and You’re living in America transgressive power’ At the end of the millennium (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 492, 505. You’re living in America Certainly, the image of Leave your conscience at the Tone the drag queen is more And when you’re living in America prominent in popular culture, from RuPaul At the end of the millennium to Dame Edna to You’re what you own (1988), from (1982) to La Cage Aux Folles Mark and Roger, and their debate, may very well have represented the and its film adaptation debate going on inside of Larson himself as he faced, for the first time, Birdcage (1996). 61 Perhaps Senelick or the mass marketing of his work to a mainstream audience. hooks do not know Cursing as a carnivalistic act has already been discussed above. anyone like my conservative, Conversely (in the bestowing of something precious as opposed to Republican parents, something intended to be harmful), gift-giving is also an act that figures who would never view drag as anything other prominently in Rent. The inciting incident in the show involves Benny’s than subversive; their reneging on the gift he had bestowed on his friends and former reaction would be roommates: free rent, which he informs Mark and Roger by phone (and similar to the negative reactions of some of song) right before the opening number, ‘Rent’: the people encountered in the Australian outback by BENNY: Dudes, I’m on my way the drag-queen MARK & ROGER: Great (Fuck!) triumvirate in Priscilla, BENNY: I need the rent Queen of the Desert. Given that those of my MARK: What rent? parent’s ilk re-elected BENNY: This year’s rent, which I let slide President George W. Bush by a majority MARK: Let slide? You said we were ‘golden’ vote, I would argue ROGER: When you bought the building that much of America still views drag as an MARK: When we were roommates ‘identity’ apart from ... normative, as a BENNY: Rent, my amigos, is due disguise, costume, or performance, and that, Or I will have to evict you particularly as Rent Be there in a few tours, many audience members read Angel’s drag as such. For an Angel gives Collins a coat to replace the one that was stolen from him when insightful discussion of they first met. And Roger gives Mimi the gift of a song, ‘Your Eyes’ – and drag and its use in musical theatre, see hope – at the climax of the show, which brings Mimi back to life. the chapter ‘‘‘Here One could view Roger’s repeated lighting of Mimi’s candle in ‘Light She Is, Boys!’’: On Divas, Drag,and My Candle’ as a sort of gift to her, but it is more properly representative Immortality’ in Clum, of one of the most prevalent carnivalistic images in Rent: fire. The entire Something for the Boys, song is a courtship revolving around Mimi’s need for a lit candle, either pp. 133–165. for light in her apartment, where the power has been turned off, or, more 62 61. Of course, Larson likely, for drug use. Mimi and Roger take turns discreetly blowing out could not have the candle in order to have an excuse to linger together.63 Their foreseen that that marketing would have courtship dance around the flame is sexy, sung to a cha-cha beat. Prior to included, to some ‘Light My Candle’, Roger and Mark sing in ‘Rent’: extent, exploitation of the fact of his own death. ROGER: How do you start a fire When there’s nothing to burn 62. Scott Miller suggests And it feels like something’s stuck in your flue that this song contains MARK: How can you generate heat 435

an insider’s joke for La When you can’t feel your feet Bohe`me fans: ‘In Bohe`me, Mimi comes MARK & ROGER: And they’re turning blue! back the second time MARK: You light up a mean blaze because she has lost her key on Rodolfo’s ROGER: With posters – floor when she fainted. MARK: And screenplays In Rent, Mimi comes back the second time also because she lost The lyrics above begin as a metaphor for Roger’s inability to ‘ignite’ her key, but it’s a inspiration for a song he is trying to write but quickly move into the more different kind of key – a kilo of cocaine. (Key immediate problem of the lack of heat in the apartment. But Roger is drug users’ slang for continues the metaphor in his next song, ‘Glory’, about his attempts to kilo.)’. Rebels with Applause, p. 187. write one great song before he dies of AIDS, one song that ‘rings true/ Truth like a blazing fire/An eternal flame’. 63. Interestingly, Bakhtin In Rent, Larson uses fire in references to love, life, death, and sex, describes a ritual, and he plays with its ambivalence as both a destroyer and life-giver. In ‘moccoli’, characteristic of the above examples, it is primarily representative of renewal and birth, Roman carnival: ‘Each except in the possibility that Mimi might be using the candle for drug participant in the carnival carried a use, which is the source of her own disease and continued decline. In lighted candle (‘‘a the song ‘Another Day’, its negative connotations are emphasized. candle stub’’) and Roger is having second thoughts about his relationship with Mimi; he each tried to put out another’s candle with tells her that she’d better go, since ‘the fire’s out anyway’. Mimi the cry ‘‘Sia responds: ammazzato!’’ (Death to thee!)’. ‘Carnival’, p. 254. The heart may freeze or it can burn The pain will ease if I can learn There is no future There is no past I live this moment As my last

But Roger is unconvinced:

Long ago – you might’ve lit up my heart But the fire’s dead – ain’t never gonna start

However, when Mimi and Roger discover that they are both HIV positive (their beepers go off at the same time, signaling their need to take AZT), they decide to let love take its course, no matter what the consequences, and sing, in ‘I Should Tell You’, ‘Trusting desire – starting to learn/Walking through fire without a burn’. The most provocative use of fire imagery – and the most complex conflation of birth and death in the one image – in Rent is during the second act in the song ‘Contact’. The song is a dance of sex, life, and death. Under a large, womb-like white sheet, the various couples enact various acts of passion, punctuated by fear – of intimacy, of disease. The music builds to a climax as everyone sings:

Fire fire burn – burn yes! No latex rubber rubber Fire latex rubber latex bummer lover bummer 436

The music ‘explodes into a fevered rhythmic heat’ as Angel, in spotlight, dances wildly alone, then disappears. As Roger, Mimi, Maureen, and Joanne experience the denouement of their rather disappointing attempts at passion, each intoning ‘It’s over’, Collins indicates a much more serious denouement by the tone of his ‘It’s over’, indicating that his partner has died. In one musical scene, Rent’s collaborators captured much of the conflicted nature of the human sexual act, particularly for those who must confront a close connection between it and death, instead of life. Engaging Bakhtin’s image of the ‘grotesque body’ with images in Rent is more thorny. Bakhtin mentions copulation as one act related to the grotesque body, and this act is certainly represented in the song ‘Contact’ described above. The ‘homeless people’ as characters offer images of bodies often viewed as grotesque in their sometimes shabby, dirty, and/or smelly conditions. But above all, Bakhtin seems to suggest that what becomes normative in carnival are those bodily processes and functions deemed grotesque by society, including excretory processes like urination, defecation, and menstruation, processes particularly 64 64. For an insightful associated, for Bakhtin, with the ‘lower regions’ of the body. In this comparison of sense, the ‘AIDS body’ could be viewed as a parallel to Bakhtin’s Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque body with ‘grotesque body’. This is not to suggest that the body ridden with HIV- Julia Kristeva’s theory negative status or full-blown AIDS is grotesque in any way; however, it is of abjection, viewed as an extension of often viewed by society as a transgression of the normative body, Bakhtin’s theory, see particularly in its ‘excretions’ and the fear of spread of the disease from Vice, Introducing them, be they blood, semen, or wrongly, saliva. Larson colors his musical Bakhtin. with some of the mundane and/or typical details surrounding the AIDS body: support groups, watch alarms that signal the time to take AZT, the first moment you learn that you have AIDS. Larson’s modus operandi in depicting the AIDS body is to demystify its processes and functions, making it more visible, just as carnival does for the plague – or leprosy- ridden body.

CARNIVAL, THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, AND CONTEMPORARY POP CULTURE

I have already addressed the complications inherent in using carnival as a lens through which to examine theatre. But it is necessary before concluding my attempt to argue the transgressive nature of Rent to explore two more questions raised by this argument: Are the inherent characteristics of the Broadway musical anathema to the carnivalesque? And just how relevant to contemporary culture is a lens that was created to view and explain aspects of culture of the late Middle Ages? The American musical has its roots in a number of forms, most of which were ‘low culture’, popular entertainments: burlesque, panto- 65 65. Opera and operetta are mime, melodrama, minstrelsy, and vaudeville. So it is ironic that the exceptions. American musical has evolved into a somewhat high culture, largely mainstream, hegemonic form. One cannot ignore the fact that carnival demands an active, communal, heterogeneous audience, and audiences at most Broadway musicals are anything but. Musicals are presented 437

primarily in that most common, most passive-audience-inducing of stage arrangements, the proscenium. Ticket prices on Broadway, topping $100, are prohibitive, almost insuring an economically homogenous audience. of Rent made a rather superficial effort to create a more heterogeneous audience, selling the front two rows (out of a total 1,181 seats) of the Nederlander for only $20 a seat the day of the show, instead of the then-top ticket price of $67.50, in the hopes of attracting younger audience members. But in spite of these machinations by the producers of Rent, it is doubtful that the audience ever differed greatly from any other passive, homogenous audience at any other Broadway house. So while the world of the show on the stage, as created by Jonathan Larson, is quite transgressive, this transgression does not carry over into the ‘real world’ beyond the proscenium, into the economics of producing a Broadway show. This production did not result in economic reforms on the Great White Way, with ticket prices lowering for all and large numbers of the lower class flocking to see shows alongside the upper class. In fact, it became, in a way, a part of the ‘Disneyfication of 66 66. For analyses of this Broadway’, adding to the theme park quality of the area. Just as one phenomenon, see can visit at Epcot center without the hassles of traveling, language Peter Marks, ‘As Giants In Suits barriers, etc., so one can visit Alphabet City without ever having to leave Descend on mid-town . Broadway’, New York Times (19 May 2002), However, it must be remembered that Rent’s development began not sec. 2: pp. 1ff., and on Broadway, but primarily off-Broadway at the non-profit New York Maurya Wickstrom, Theatre Workshop (NYTW). Founded in 1979, the NYTW has existed as ‘Commodities, Mimesis, and The Lion a laboratory for playwrights and directors, some well-known, others King: Retail Theatre unknown, to develop and create more experimental work; the theatre for the 1990s’, Theatre Journal, 51:3 (1999), sponsors reading series, productions of works-in-progress, a new 285–298. directors series, and other programs. Helmed by Jim Nicola since 1987, the NYTW moved into its current home at 79 East 4th Street – in the East Village – in 1993. When that venue was under construction in 1992, Larson reportedly rode by it on his bike, immediately thinking it the perfect space for his new musical. But he was also familiar with the mission of the theatre, and his proposal to Nicola was well timed, given that it was the off-season and Nicola had time to review the proposal almost immediately. Larson’s letter to Nicola read, in part: ‘I’ve been a of your productions for a while now, and the location of your new space confirms what I’ve always felt – that you’re one of the only producers courageous enough to cultivate younger, hipper, downtown 67 67. Quoted in artists and audiences. This is exactly my brand of theater’. In a 1997 McDonnell, Rent, interview in the Advocate, Nicola claims that he recognized Rent’s p. 23. potential right away: ‘Rent was about the people on the streets around 68 68. Quoted in Scanlan, ‘In us, and I liked that a lot’. It was at the NYTW that the eventual Profile’, p. 77. Broadway producers of Rent, and Kevin McCollum, first saw a staged reading; however, the four-year development of the show at the East Village, non-profit venue suggests an ‘authenticity’ and transgressiveness that its eventual Broadway location belies. Further- more, I do believe that the extensive tour of Rent has helped the musical go further toward more fully achieving Larson’s utopian, community- building ‘bohemian’ visions. Ticket prices tend to be somewhat more reasonable for touring shows, making them more accessible to more 438

diverse audiences. Furthermore, the show has become a global phenomenon, packing houses in England, , , , etc. Enthusiastic fans, called ‘Rent Heads’, see the show ten, fifteen, twenty or more times, both on Broadway and on tour. And the film version will further increase the visibility of Larson’s vision, although it will lack the liveness so necessary for true carnival communitas. Finally, has my whole project been undermined by the archaic nature of Bakhtin’s theories, developed to explain cultural practices in use centuries before Rent appeared on Broadway in 1996? I do not believe so. Just as, for example, Aristotle’s six elements of drama, written to describe cultural practices just prior to and up to the philosopher’s time, are still, over 2,000 years later, relevant tools for analyzing drama and theatre, so too are Bakhtin’s theories applicable beyond his original applicational intent. His theories have been utilized quite insightfully by numerous contemporary cultural theorists to explore rock music, television and film. John Docker, in Postmodernism and Popular Culture: A Cultural History, argues throughout that carnival as a cultural mode 69 69. John Docker, remains a strong influence on contemporary culture. Carl Rhodes, in Postmodernism and an article for Culture and Organization, uses Bakhtin’s theories to Popular Culture: A Cultural History examine the animated television comedy ; the Journal of (Cambridge: Popular Culture has included within its pages such articles as ‘Looking Cambridge University Press, 1994). Through a Glass Onion: Rock and Roll as a Modern Manifestation of Carnival’ and ‘Bakhtin’s Carnival Reversed: King’s The Shining as Dark 70 70. Carl Rhodes, ‘Coffee Carnival’. and the Business of Rent is hardly a perfect musical, and had Larson lived beyond its final Pleasure: The Case of Harbucks vs. dress rehearsal, it might have been improved further before its Broadway Mr Tweek’, Culture opening. The sentimental aspects of Rent, as well as its poignant and Organization,8:4 (2002), 293–306; moments and emphasis on romantic love, albeit a broader vision of Paul R. Kohl, romantic love than is usually seen in the musical, all point toward the fact ‘Looking Through a that in spite of Larson’s attempts to break new ground with his show, his Glass Onion: Rock and Roll as a Modern creativity is still bound by certain conventions of the musical stage, Manifestation of making an argument for the show’s – or any musical’s – carnivalesque Carnival’, Journal of Popular Culture, 27:1 nature all the more complex. But particularly in relation to other (Summer 1993), Broadway musicals, I believe that Rent deserves considerably more credit 143–161; Linda J. Holland-Toll. as a transgressive piece of musical theatre than it has been given. ‘Bakhtin’s Carnival Schulman and other detractors seem to too quickly dismiss it for what it Reversed: King’s The does not do, instead of carefully analyzing what it does do, and Shining as Dark Carnival’, Journal of applauding it for that, pointing out ways that future musicals might build Popular Culture, 33:2 on what Rent has begun. This might be because of the existing scholarly (Fall 1999), 131–147. See also, for example, bias against musical theatre. It might be because so many critics lack the Karen Bettez Halnon’s tools necessary to fully analyze a musical. It might be because they, too, ‘Inside Shock Music were blinded by the very ‘hype’ they criticized. Perhaps the current, Carnival: Spectacle as Contested Terrain’, rather conservative and traditional climate of musical theatre today – Critical Sociology, 30:3 exceptions such as notwithstanding – will help them see Rent (2004), 743–779. in a new light. If, as musical theatre songwriter , in Billboard magazine, puts it, Rent failed to change the face of musical theatre, at 71 71. Wayne Hoffman, ‘The least it opened a door. Curtain Rises in a New Era for Broadway’, Billboard (21 April 2001), p. 1.