Rent

(delivered on-air September 23, 2010)

The Westchester Broadway Theatre’s production.  I love this venue.  The WBT is dinner theatre par excellence.  The food and service are great;  the productions as professional as Broadway, and the actors frequently appear on Broadway/Off Broadway, TV and the movies.  So I recommend the venue.  Go to see any of their productions for a fine night or matinee experience.  As to Rent, it is well produced, but is a crappy play.  I saw it on Broadway and disliked it.  But I heard so many people say good things about it that I thought perhaps I was wrong and I went to see it again.  Well I wasn’t wrong.  This is a bum play. 

I also saw Jonathan Larson’s other play, tick, tick BOOM which wasn’t much better.  I believe that the posthumous Pulitzer Larson was awarded for Rent was an expression of sympathy for his tragic death a week and a half before his 36th birthday, and an homage to subject matter near and dear to the hearts of the theatre community.  Jonathan Larson may have had a good play in him had he lived.  He certainly had the dedication that so often goes with success.  He walked the walk and lived the artist’s life.  His death at so young an age was a personal tragedy, but not an artistic one.