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Rent Contextual Analysis
- 1. Rent Contextual Analysis Rentis 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 fi 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 fi 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 fi lmmaker who throughout the musical narrates the show while he fi 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 fi 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 fi 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 ffi 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 fi nding it di ffi 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.