So, the other day I had Mr Greg over and we sat down and watched the movie adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s musical Rent; itself frequently billed as a bohemian New York rock opera.

I am a huge fan of this musical and have not only seen the DVD countless times, but I have been fortunate enough to have seen productions of it both on the West End and Broadway.

Incidentally – and very surprisingly! – the Broadway version of Rent will close on September 7th 2008. The official website for the show has been done over rather poignantly; they’ve cleverly made use of the whole countdown/525,600 minutes thing running down until the end of the show as well as including lots of posts from cast members both past and present.  (NB – Updated blog post HERE)

I think the reason that I like it so much is because I can identify with each and every character’s story on some level. At one stage of my life thus far or another I have encountered a similar situation, or range of emotions as the character goes through over the course of the two hour performance. That’s not to say that I have experienced everything that the musical deals with, fortunately far from it, however if there’s one musical guaranteed to move me, then this one is it :oD

Mimi is definitely my favourite character, however, although they all have a lot in common, each character manages to have a completely unique set of attribtues which I think is what, as a group, makes them so easy to identify with.

Structurally, this is a remarkably perfect musical; you really are taken on a journey. I like the use of the idea of a year in the life of the group, the use of the seasons of the year and how love blossoms in the spring, flourishes in the summer, death occurs in the autumn and redemption occurs in the winter and the connotations that can conjour with pure white snow etc.  Based in part on Puccini’s “La Bohéme”, I think that story itself provided an excellent classical structural base from which the musical could draw from. Rent successfully manages to take you on a journey of the lives of eight principal cast members without seemingly flitting about or appearing disjointed as so many mediums ultimately end up doing.

For further details on the movie version, I would recommend the Wikipedia page as a good source of information (unusual I know hehe!). The Wiki page for the muscial itself is also rather knowledgable – I am suspecting that some of the RentHeads (fans of Rent – The Musical) have contributed the most to these.

Included below are a few songs as per the big screen adaptation;

(perhaps one of the most beautiful songs in a musical – the above is definitely one of my favourites!)

No Day But Today xx