Rent is a very popular play on Broadway. As a Tony Award- and Pulitzer-winning rock musical that has been turned into a hit movie, it is a great play to see with your car rental in New York. The story is based on the opera, La boheme, but it is set in the 1990s in New York’s Alphabet City with the threat of AIDS.
Rent is an interesting play to see with your car rental in New York because it was one of the first plays to feature gay, bisexual, lesbian, an transgender characters who faced many challenges: drugs and AIDS were prominent during this period. The play is also noted for its ethnically diverse cast, with many leading roles. This is not a play for younger children: there are references to these taboo topics. But teenagers and adults will enjoy it. Many critics have pointed out that this play appeals to Generation X the same way Hairspray appealed to those who grew up in the 1960s because of all the cultural references in the play.
How do you measure a play?
The idea for the play came from Puccini’s La Boheme, but the old world was replaced with the noisy New York City setting. There are many similarities between the two stories. There is a disease that is prevalent in the community (tuberculosis for the opera, HIV/AIDS for the play). There are also the creative people on the outskirts of society. In the opera it is the poets, artists, and musicians. In the play you have the filmmakers, musicians, and performance artists. As you may learn before you go see the play with your car rental in New York, a lot of the elements within the play are taken from the writer’s own life. He was also a struggling artist ho lived in New York in poor conditions for his art. He had used illegal wood-burning stoves and dealt with broken buzzers on a regular basis.
The story itself follows the lives of eight friends in New York as they struggle with everyday life. They face problems such as relationships, love, loss, the reason for living, housing, and of course, AIDS. When you come with your car rental in New York, you will meet Mark, who is a documentary filmmaker who chronicles the people in the story. There is Mark’s roommate Roger, who is an HIV-positive musician recovering from a heroin addiction. He falls in love with Mimi, who is also infected with HIV. She dances in a club and is addicted to heroin. There is Benny, the ex-roommate who married a wealthy girl and got out of the neighborhood. He is now the landlord. Most characters consider him to be a sellout. Then there is Maureen, who is a performance artist. She was Mark’s girlfriend, but then fell in love with Joanne. There is Angel, a drag queen and musician with AIDS. Angel falls in love with Tom, a professor and anarchist with AIDS. All of the characters know and interact with each other throughout the play.
When you come see Rent with your car rental in New York, you will be taken into a world you may never have realized existed or it may be one that you see every day. What is so appealing about this musical is the humanity of the characters. You can feel their pain and, although you may not agree with what they do, you can empathize with making a bad decision that has lead you down the wrong path. This is one of the best plays on Broadway.