After more than 5,256,000 minutes on Broadway, the late Jonathan Larson's Rent will close in June 1st, 2008. By that time, the show will have played more than 5,000 performances, making it the seventh-longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing the runs of such fabled shows as Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly!, and The Producers.
Because the show's been playing for so long, and because it has long since passed beyond its "must-see" status, it's easy to forget what an impact the show had when it first came on the Broadway scene. Sure, it was hyped beyond belief, particularly by a gushing New York Times. And once the smoke had settled, it was all too easy to recognize that the show was actually quite flawed. The movie version met with a shrug from critics and audiences alike, and did little to re-ignite the flame of public affection for the show.
But the night I saw Rent was one of the most electrifying evenings I've ever had in the theater. I saw the show the night before it opened on Broadway, and it simply blew me away. Part of this was because my boyfriend at the time was HIV-positive, and this was right before protease inhibitors came out, so we thought that we had very little time together. So by the time Collins sang the reprise of "I'll Cover You" in the second act, I was a weepy, sloppy mess. Rent became a musical catharsis for many people, across many different demographics, and there was just enough heart, energy, and raw passion in the piece to overcome its many faults.
When I ask my students at the Boston Conservatory to write a paper about the most overrated musical, I present them with the following paragraph to give them a sense of what kind of analysis I'm looking for in their papers: 
Rent has a number of songs that simply don’t ring true: songs that describe
events so lacking in credibility that they strain the audience’s suspension of
disbelief. One example is “Today 4
U,” the song that introduces the audience to Angel Dumont Shunard, the show’s
resident drag queen and free spirit. The song is meant to be a comedic,
up-tempo dance number that sets Angel up as a fun, sympathetic character, but
Larson achieves this by having Angel tell the story of how he incites some poor
defenseless Akita
to commit suicide. That’s not only cruel, it’s unbelievable. Some rich woman
asks Angel to play his pickle-tub drum nonstop, under the assumption that the
din will induce the noisy dog next door to “bark itself to death.” Later Angel
sings “who could foretell that it would work so well. For sure as I am here
that dog is now in doggy hell.” Rather than barking itself to death, the dog
jumps from the balcony of its owner’s luxury Manhattan high-rise. But dogs don't kill themselves. This is a lame anthropomorphic conceit on Larson's part, and even if it were possible, it simply isn't funny.
So Rent certainly isn't a perfect show. However, we need look no further than tick, tick...Boom! to confirm that Jonathan Larson was indeed a gifted man. Who knows if he ever would have produced something to equal or surpass Rent? But the quality of the music and lyrics in both of these shows makes it all the more heartbreaking to contemplate what might have been.
On a side note, it will be interesting to see how quickly another show books the Nederlander Theater once Rent has closed. Prior to Rent's tenancy, the Nederlander was considered a bit unlucky, if not downright cursed. The theater was frequently dark, when it wasn't hosting flop musicals like Raggedy Ann or Wind in the Willows. Of course, that was before Times Square and 42nd Street in particular received their respective makeovers. The Nederlander is the southernmost Broadway house, on 41st Street, and prior to the Times Square cleanup, the next nearest Broadway house was on 44th Street. Peripheral theaters like the Nederlander, the Belasco, the Lyceum, and the Cort often have a hard time attracting audiences, even though they're really only a stone's throw from the rest of Broadway. Will Rent and the new family-friendly 42nd Street reverse the Nederlander's future fortune?
