Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 16(4), 2006, 419 – 438 Of Fire, Death, and Desire: Transgression and Carnival in Jonathan Larson’s Rent 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 Frank Rich in the draft of this essay at the 1997 Meeting of New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, six Drama Desk awards, the Association for three Obies, and four Tonys, including Best Musical, some critics Theatre in Higher Education in Chicago; 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 once 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 Hair began to surface. The most scathing and extensive has Miller for his been playwright and fiction author Sarah Schulman’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 lesbians, 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 Giacomo Puccini’s opera La graduate students in Bohe`me, as well as Henri Murger’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 musical theatre 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 lesbian 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 the New York Times. 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, homelessness, homosexuality, 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 Michael Korie 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 Billy Aronson, 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.