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mena bayuga rogers smith santana wilson davis
By Michael Paskevich
Review-Journal
The compelling characters in the generation-defining musical, "Rent" - in residence at the Las Vegas Hilton through Nov. 7 - seem like the spiritual offspring of the hippies in "Hair," the seminal rock musical that shook up Broadway when it opened in 1968.
Same for "Rent" some three decades later. The late Jonathan Larson's incisive look at modern Bohemians - in a loose but palpable retelling of Giacomo Puccini's "La Boheme" - earned a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1996 along with quartet of Tony Awards, a half-dozen Drama Desk Awards and countless "best musical" touts from critics around the world.
Whereas "Hair" shocked many theater patrons via its advocacy of free love, marijuana as one of nature's gifts, (brief) nudity as freedom and a boundless optimism that a new age of unending bliss was dawning, "Rent" reveals the dark-side results of the naive nihilism of the late-'60s love generation.
Thus the thrift store-costumed characters who occupy an abandoned warehouse in New York City confront today's harsh reality of AIDS, heroin addiction, poverty and the sense that there's little reason to hope for a brighter future. Add a drag queen named Angel, principals playing lesbians and gays, a ramshackle set and a demanding lyrical rock score and it's understandable why a few seats turned vacant after Thursday night's intermission.
It's simply too tough of a go for some folks - not a crime, of course - but the spontaneous standing ovation awarded the cast at final curtain was...