Review: RENT at Jaxx Theatre

RENT is a legendary show. Acclaimed and beloved, it won three Tonys (Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score), four Drama Desk Awards (Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Book of a Musical, Outstanding Music, and Outstanding Lyrics), and even a Pulitzer Prize for drama. It is one of the longest-running shows on Broadway (12 years!), grossing $280 million, spawning many tours, both domestic and international, and was adapted into a film in 2005.

All that does not mean it isn’t problematic. And the new production at the Jaxx Theatre in Hollywood is unable to make up for those problems.

Loosely based on Puccini’s opera “La bohème” (in addition to creator Jonathan Larson’s own life at the time), RENT focuses on a circle of friends, struggling and striving artists and philosophers living in New York’s East Village in 1989–1990, tackling serious topics like HIV, suicide, and depression. At the center of the group are roommates Mark (Blake Rosier), an aspiring filmmaker, and Roger (Brennan Eckberg), an aspiring musician. With six other major characters to remember and several others in the ensemble, it’s a bit unwieldy trying to keep track of them all. How to become invested in a character if you can’t get a grasp on who they are? Overly complicated, nothing resonates. It’s both underwritten and overblown. A problem I did not have with “La bohème,” oddly.

Part of the issue is the sound system. The performers’ voices come across as tinny through it, whether they’re speaking or singing. Compounding that is the volume of the band, directed and conducted by Jill Marie Burke, which overpowers the performers — again, both in song and dialogue — throughout the show. In such a small space, you wouldn’t think the actors would need microphones, but even with them, they were consistently overwhelmed by the band, which was set just off to the side of the stage. The musicians were good, just intrusive.

The Jaxx Theatre is an intimate location, with the audience seated on opposite walls, the stage in the center. That stage is quite small for such a large ensemble, however, making some of the dance productions unwieldy with all the performers. Director and choreographer Jeremy Lucas, perhaps because the space is so small, wasn’t allowed to give the characters room to move as freely as necessary. The actors rarely seem able to express the vigor of their roles because it’s so tight.

Additionally, there is a flatness to the production across the board, a lack of energy, when, despite the heavy material, there should be a joy, or at least a hopefulness. Hannah Staudinger and Cameron Jackson as lesbian couple Maureen and Joanne are two standouts. They have sparks, lighting up the place with their explosive duet “Take Me or Leave Me.” But they aren’t enough to invigorate the show. Perhaps with better sound, a bigger stage (or a smaller ensemble), and tighter direction, this could have reached the show’s storied heights.

Photos by Corran Villalobos

RENT is performed at the Jaxx Theatre, 5432 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, through November 2. Tickets are available at Showclix.com/Event/Rent-Jaxx.

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