Bonnie and I saw the musical Rent at UNC’s Memorial Hall, but never quite figured out that the hype was all about. It may have just been us (and the MIT art reviewer) because everyone else in the theater acted like it was the best thing ever. There was even anticipatory cheering when some scenes started, reminiscent of fan reactions during The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The crowd was noticeably younger than usual for the Performing Arts series (it’s the first time I’ve noticed that student tickets had sold out), and perhaps they identified with the young characters.
Maybe I needed a prequel to build interest in the characters, but I couldn’t feel too sympathetic about a bunch of squatters being evicted from an abandoned building. Otherwise, I was able to enjoy the music and the interesting choreography. The set was impressive with multiple levels and entrances. The writing had some nice symmetries without feeling too contrived.
Some technical artifacts made it hard for me to follow along at times. All the actors wore microphones which made it difficult to tell who was singing at first when there were a dozen actors on the stage (since the sound came from the audio equipment, not the actor). And in spite of the microphones, some actors still crossed the line from singing to yelling at times, both losing the pitch and making the words unintelligible (or maybe the audio equipment was to blame).