PicksInSix Review: RENT Porchlight Music Theatre
Solid Vocal Power Pays ‘Rent’ Tribute
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Scott Gryder
The historic Ruth Page Center for the Arts was fully transformed into the shadowy streets of 90’s New York City with Porchlight Music Theatre’s opening night performance of Jonathan Larson’s Rent. Although nearly 3 hours long, including one intermission, with masks required inside the theater, each act bustled by like Manhattan rush hour. The energy and commitment of a cast willing to risk it all was rocking!
Since its 1996 off-Broadway opening, Rent has been a musical theatre staple. The piece, a sort of rough retelling of Puccini's La Bohème, aims to capture the heart of late 80’s/early 90’s rock, and Porchlight’s production successfully does the same. Under the baton of Dr. Michael McBride, the music, much like the inspired 1896 opera, is the key to the storytelling of Rent. With a majority of dialogue and action shared through song, these struggling bohemian artists musically monologue their stresses and fears of the times, navigating love and life day by day.
The tight-knit leads are the glue to Rent’s plot. Within a year’s span of the piece, the audience is given a crash course of each character’s struggles and dreams, witnessing how each day brings new challenges and lessons learned. Although David Moreland’s Mark Cohen is the most grounded of the central characters, it’s the charismatic yet maddening chemistry between Teressa LaGamba’s Joanne Jefferson and Lucy Godínez’s Maureen Johnson that sparked the greatest applause, specifically after their duet “Take Me or Leave Me.” The ensemble rounds out the grimy and real struggles of New York City living in short spurts, filling out scenes and vocals with a certain brash commitment.
Along with Rent’s popularity has come a multitude of tours and local performances, each one attempting to recreate the grunge artistic life of the time; however, that mark is often missed. With Porchlight’s production, director Adrian Abel Azevedo takes risks not to remount a carbon copy, instead focusing on the impressive vocals to execute much of the passion behind each scene’s emotional momentum. No riff nor modulation was left unexplored, bringing a fresh new take to the well-known score.
What pops most with energy throughout the production is choreographer Laura Savage’s group moves. Instead of individual expression when dancing, many moments with motion are synchronized, as if the characters have a shared language in their movement. To fill the stage with that mirrored movement packs a punch (and a few fierce fist pumps). What also successfully captures the energy of the scene is Maggie Fullilove-Nugent’s lighting design. The neon light vibes accentuate the subtext and emotion, focusing most of the set in looming shadows and only spotlighting heightened scenes and more poignant moments. But it’s scenic designer Anne Davis’s full-on VHS tape-style centerpiece that really takes the audience back. The nuances in detail, from creating cityscape visuals to full-on usability as an apartment building, make Davis’s set a fun house of nostalgia. Although fairly consistent throughout, the sound mixing issues were the only distraction.
Porchlight’s Rent, powered by serious vocal stamina, will surely rock Chicago’s musical theatre scene through the end of this month. If you’re looking for an evening of solid nostalgia and youthful energy in an intimate venue, make sure you pay this Rent a visit.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | SCOTT GRYDER received a Non-Equity Jeff Award for his performance in the one-man show BUYER & CELLAR. www.thescottgryder.com
PHOTO| Liz Lauren
PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
presents
RENT
Ruth Page Center for the Arts
EXTENDED through December 11
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