Rent Contextual Analysis

1. Rent Contextual Analysis
Rent is an American rock musical by Jonathan Larson. Rent tells the story of a year in the life of a
group of impoverished, artistic friends, who are trying to create a life for themselves in Lower
Manhattan’s east village where they live. The main characters follow: Mark, an aspiring
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lmmaker.
Roger, a HIV positive musician. Mimi and angel, who are also HIV positive. Collins, a gay
computer genius who is also HIV positive. And Joanne, who seeks
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delity from her performer
girlfriend Maureen. They needed to decide how they would handle their problems while still
staying together as friends and even some as lovers. The groups, struggles, dreams, losses and
loves stories are portrayed throughout the musical, in order to show the gritty bohemian world of
New York City in the late 1980’s, under the shadow of aids, in a very raw and emotional way.
The theme of the musical rent was “carpe dime” which is Latin for size the day. As stated above is
is. Rock musical. It is also loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1806 opera La Bohème. The
musical uses all three elements of musical theatre, singing acting and dance.
I was assigned the character of Mark. Mark is a
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lmmaker who throughout the musical narrates
the show while he
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lms the lives of him and his friends. He is the best friend of Rodger, who he
lives with and is the ex boyfriend of Maureen. He is poor and struggles to pay rent. Mark is
portrayed as quirky and nerdy but also kind and idealistic. He is ambitious to survive the
bleakness of him as his friends life through his passion for his art. However it become clear
throughout that he would rather live life and view the world through his camera lens, rather that
actually being engaged with it. He does not have HIV like many of his friends and he is left feeling
guilty at parts for this. Throughout the musical he is seen mostly singing and acting however he
does have small parts of dance also.
We are performing the song ‘Seasons of Love’. In the movie this song is the opening number of
the entire show, however in the musical this song acts as the opening number of the second act.
Prior to this scene, in the
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rst act we see the main characters struggle over Christmas. Marks has
been dumped by Maureen. Collins is mugged. And Mark and Rodger struggle to pay rent. We also
then go on to see Angel and Collins meet when they shortly after learn that they are both HIV
positive. It is also revealed that Rodger has HIV which he contracted from his ex who killed herself
leading to him becoming depressed. Later Mark and Rodger’s landlord, Benny, arrives to discuss
Maureen's protest against his plans to evict the homeless. Benny tells Mark and Rodger that they
can remain rent free if they stop the protest - they decline this o
ff
er and help her instead. We also
see Mimi
fl
irt with and try to seduce Rodger on multiple occasions, however Rodger is reluctant
due to him having HIV. Collins and Angel later confess their live for each other. We see the group
work together to prepare for the protest. After this when Mimi and Rodger both discover that the
other is HIV positive they decide to progress with their relationship. Lastly we see Joanne explain
that Mark and Rodgers building has been padlocked and riot has broke out however Rodger is
unaware as he is sharing his
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rst kiss with Mimi. We then go on to see the beginning of the
second act which open with the scene we are performing - Seasons of Love, where the cast lines
up to sing together, a
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rming that one should measure life “in love”.
The main skills evident in this piece would be: projection, pitch, timing, breath control, rhythm,
facial expression, pace/energy and characterisation. In rehearsals our main focus is on
characterisation and harmonies within this scene. As the scene we are performing is just singing
the song ‘Seasons Of Love”, as a class we are
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nding it di
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cult to hold good characterisation
throughout as our many of us are mainly focus on our vocals. This scene is portrayed as a very
happy and joyful scene in the musical therefore we need to get this across to our audience
through our facial expressions and slight gestures/body movements. We have worked on this in
workshops where we have performed the scene without any singing at all, just by focusing on
embodying the characters. This song also contains many di
ff
erent harmonies as it is sung by a
big group of people therefore as a class we are working on everyone hitting the right notes at the
right time in order to make sure our harmonies are sung correctly. The relationships between the
characters in this scene are very friendly and loving, as the group of friends are singing about the
appreciation of their love.