Rent

Somewhere I still have my ticket stub from when I went
to see Rent in New York City at the Nederlander Theater
208 W. 41st St., between 7th and 8th Avenues. I was in
New York City for an exchange that Orono High School
had started with Walton High School, in the Bronx. I
was staying with Milagros, who at the time was a
senior in high school as I was also. Since neither of
us knew how to get to the theater, but had the address
of where it was, we set out early from her family's
apartment up on University Ave. All we had was the
street it was on, and knew that it was between 7th and
8th Aves. To get to midtown Manhattan from her apartment,
we had to take both the 4 and D on the subway and got
off at the 42nd St./Times Square stop. Once we figured
out where we were going, we got to the theater just fine,
an we were early, being the first ones in our large
goup, a mix of students and chaperones from Orono and
students from Walton.
I had some background information about the play before
we went to NYC, but not too much. I knew that seeing it
would change me, and it did. It was the first Broadway
type play that I had seen with a compilation of topics
ranging from poverty and homelessness, to drugs, AIDS,
and homeosexuality (a shunned, feared, and purposely
avoided topic in American society, but still ever prevalent).
One of my favorite scenes from the movie is when they are
all in the cafe after going to Maureen's protest to raise
awareness about homelessness. They go in hoping to relax
after seeing and talking to Benny at the protest, but
they discover that he is also in the cafe, at a table
beside them. Through this they are dancing on the tables,
singing and having a jolly good time. At first the seating
host doesn't want to let them in, because they have had
a reputation for coming in and ordering nothing, or
ordering and then not paying because of having no money.
They get let in really quickly when Angel flashes him a
$100 dollar bill. During that part, when I was at the
movie theater, I was laughing so hard that I was crying.
It's kind of hard to deny the hilarity of the situation
at the cafe and the events that unfold.
One of the saddest parts, as with the musical, is when
Angel is dying and then eventually dies from AIDS. It's
like the scenes from Angels in America: Millenium Approaches
when Louis visits Prior after the physical symptoms of
AIDS begin to show on his body, the dark reddish lesions
all over him. Collins, being his most recent boyfriend,
is with him in the hospital and on the subway when he is
going through the cold sweats and fevers and trying to
comfort him the best way he knows how, all the while
knowing that the inevitable is drawing closer and closer.
My favorite line of Angel's is actually heard after he
has already died: "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be
and more of a woman than you'll ever get."