Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Of fire, death, and desire: Transgression and carnival in Jonathan Larson's rent

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10486800600923960

1477-2264

Judith Sebesta,

Theatre and Performance Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Carnival and the Carnivalesque’, in John Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (London: Prentice Hall, 1998), pp. 250 – 259 (p. 252). 2. Jonathan Larson, quoted in Evelyn McDonnell, Rent (New York: Weisbach-Morrow, 1997), p. 139. 3. I presented an earlier draft of this essay at the 1997 Meeting of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education in Chicago; thank you to David Román for his comments there. I would also like to thank the editors of this journal for their insightful suggestions; performance artist Tim Miller for his encouraging words to me regarding the value of Rent; theorist John Lutterbie for his helpful comments on drafts; and the graduate students in my Contemporary Theatre course at the University of Arizona for their thoughts on Rent in class discussions. 4. See, for example, Robert Brustein's vituperative review ‘The New Bohemians’ in The New Republic (26 April 1996), pp. 29 – 31; with customary bluntness he writes, ‘I hope it will not be construed as coldhearted when I say that his [Larson's] death was also a sad day for contemporary criticism, being another instance of how it can be hobbled by extra-artistic considerations’ (p. 29). See also Mark Steyn, ‘“Rent” Subsidy’, New Criterion (May 1996), pp. 42ff., and Frances Davis, ‘Victim Kitsch’, Atlantic Monthly (September 1996), pp. 98ff. 5. Sarah Schulman, Stage Struck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998). 6. Larson quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 138. 7. Schulman, Stage Struck, p. 15. 8. Ibid., p. 13. 9. Ibid., p. 23 – 24. 10. Ibid., p. 36. Paralleling Shulman's claims were Thomson's claims that as dramaturg, she was entitled to recognition of co-authorship and a percentage of the profits. Although she had no written contract, she filed a suit against Larson's estate based on verbal agreements made with Larson before his death. The suit became a watershed case in the protection of the rights of dramaturgs. It was eventually settled out of court. 11. This foundation is weakened by several problems within the book. As stated, the author cites no sources. Since she is primarily a writer in the popular, not scholarly, press, this could be excused; however, it becomes highly problematic when, for example, Schulman quotes Marcuse but gives no source so that the reader can check accuracy (p. 71). Even worse is her lack of evidence to support some fairly controversial claims, such as her assertions that lesbian incomes are lower than those for female heterosexuals and that large numbers of lesbians are residents in homeless shelters. Her evidence? ‘I've heard from a number of people’ (p. 109). The evidential foundation is further compromised by a variety of more minor but still telling textual mistakes and biases: Schulman misspells ‘Chekhov’ (she spells it ‘Checkov’) and ‘Lynn Thomson’ (she spells it Thompson); refers to the gay, black, homeless math professor character in Rent as ‘Benny’ when his name is Tom Collins; and reveals a raging bias against graduate education as she compares it to Rent: ‘I hate the snobbish, market-oriented culture of mediocrity these [MFA writing] programs are creating … It's a sad narrative arc from the WPA to NEA to MFA’ (p. 43). She goes on to claim that MFA writing programs and Rent reflect ‘the power of institutions to normalize privilege, to homogenize aesthetics’ (p. 44). 12. Schulman, Stage Struck, p. 71. 13. Ibid., p. 101. 14. Ibid., p. 71. 15. Ibid., p. 80. 16. Interestingly, in spite of Schulman's criticism of Larson, and her sympathy with Thomson, she blames the latter for the whitewashing, suggesting that Rent, as Larson originally wrote it, was closer in ‘truth’ regarding images of homosexuality and AIDS, and implying that Thomson's changes ‘straightened’ it out. 17. Brustein, ‘Bohemians’, p. 30. 18. Steyn, ‘“Rent” Subsidy’, pp. 44 – 45. Steyn expands on this criticism in his book Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then & Now (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 207 – 211. 19. Davis, ‘Victim’, p. 106. 20. Evelyn McDonnell, ‘Not Just a Fable, a Testament: Rent Moves from Alphabet City to Broadway’, Village Voice (30 April 1996), pp. 27 – 30. 26. Jill Dolan, Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), p. 110. 21. David Savran, ‘Rent's Due: Multiculturalism and the Spectacle of Difference’, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 14 (Winter 2002), 1 – 14 (p. 13). 22. Savran, ‘Rent's Due’, p. 3. 23. David Román, Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 272. 24. John M. Clum, Something for the Boys: Musical Theatre and Gay Culture (New York: Palgrave, 1999), pp. 272 – 273. 25. Clum, Something, p. 274. 27. Peter Galvin, ‘New Bohemians’, Advocate (30 April 1996), pp. 58 – 59. 28. Stefani Eads, ‘Rent Collection’, POZ (August/September 1996), p. 56. 29. Dolan, Geographies, p. 110. 30. Eads, ‘Rent Collection’, p. 56. Even Evelyn McDonnell's criticism, quoted above, becomes watered down in the face of the fact that she eventually became the chosen one to document the musical's history in the official ‘coffee-table’ book of the show. Slick, graphically interesting, and filled with interviews with the creators of Rent as well as friends and family of Larson, the book has clearly been sanctioned by Larson's estate and is almost irresponsibly one-sided. Nowhere are McDonnell's original reservations evident. Still, the copious interviews included in it are extremely useful. 31. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968), p. 109. 32. Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Carnival and the Carnivalesque’, p. 251. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., pp. 252 – 253. 35. Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (London: Methuen, 1986), p. 9. 36. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, p. 317. 37. Bakhtin, ‘Carnival’, p. 255. 38. Ibid., p. 256. 39. Ibid., p. 250. 40. Ibid., pp. 257 – 258. 41. ‘Dialogism’ equals ‘double-voicedness’ to Bakhtin, although his precise meanings are somewhat ambiguous. However, he claims that dramatic action is inherently monologic in its resolution of all dialogic oppositions: ‘A true multiplicity of levels would destroy drama, because dramatic action, relying as it does upon the unity of the world, could not link those levels together or resolve them’. See Sue Vice, Introducing Bakhtin (Manchester, Manchester University Press), p. 187. Furthermore, he argues that drama cannot be dialogic because it lacks the fictional narrator. 42. See, for example, Robert Cunliffe, ‘The Architectonics of Carnival and Drama in Bakhtin, Artaud, and Brecht’, in David Shepherd (ed.), Bakhtin, Carnival, and Other Subjects, Critical Studies 3(2)–4(1/2) (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993) 48 – 69; Cunliffe, ‘Bakhtin and Derrida: Drama and the Phoneyness of the Phonè’, in Carol Adlam et al. (eds), Face to Face: Bakhtin in Russia and the West (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 347 – 365; and Halina Filipowicz, ‘A Polish Expedition to Baltimore’, Drama Review, 31:1 (1987), 137 – 165. 43. Michael D. Bristol, Carnival and Theater: Plebeian Culture and the Structure of Authority in Renaissance England (New York: Methuen, 1985), p. 23. 44. Quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 11. The PBS documentary Broadway: The American Musical, contains poignant video footage of Larson's celebratory last day working at the Moodance Diner. Dir. Michael Kantor, DVD, Educational Broadcasting and Broadway Film Project, 2004. 45. Quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 14. 46. All lyrics are quoted from McDonnell, Rent. 47. Admittedly, the heterogeneity of the area has lessened considerably since the 1980s. Larson's vision of the East Village is clearly based more on his experience there during that decade than any current reality. 48. This attempt to bring the East Village to Broadway was, not surprisingly, ridiculed by some critics, often in the same breath as they disparaged the whole ‘Disneyfication’ of the area. See, for example, Linda Winer, who likens the experience to entering an ‘East Village theme park’, in ‘A New Lease: The Prize-Winning “Rent” Moves to Broadway’, Newsday (30 April 1996), http://www.lifecafe.com/features/Move.htm. 49. But not all critics: in Rebels with Applause: Broadway's Groundbreaking Musicals, Scott Miller argues convincingly that ‘Rent is not an updated La Bohème or an adaptation; it's a response to it’ (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001), p. 187. 50. McDonnell, Rent, p. 21. 51. Bakhtin, ‘Carnival’, p. 251. 52. Whether or not Larson actually utilized rock music is a question of contention for some critics. Most labeled it as such, but a select few either labeled the music pop or, like Francis Davis, compared the show to Hair, suggesting that the music is standard show tune fare barely disguised as rock. I would argue that Larson did compose rock music, but largely in his use of instruments typical of rock: drums, keyboard, bass, and guitar, including electric guitar. Still, Rent is not written in traditional rock-and-roll guitar keys. 53. Jim Nicola, the Artistic Director of the New York Theatre Workshop, where Rent was largely developed, likely can be credited for helping to foster positive images of gays in the piece; in the Advocate, Nicola claims, ‘It hasn't been a conscious idea … [b]ut a lot of the material I'm attracted to has happened to be gay or lesbian. I choose material that excites me – that makes me feel an emotional commitment – to get through the long, arduous process of producing it’. Dick Scanlan, ‘In Profile’, Advocate (16 September 1997), p. 77. 55. Quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 24. 54. McDonnell, Rent, p. 24. 56. Hubbard and Dickinson quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 24. 57. Quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 44. 58. This is not to say that lesbians have had no part in the creation of Broadway musicals, just not as great a part as gay men, historically. This is certainly changing as more and more women in general become involved as directors, producers, conductors, designers, composers, lyricists, etc. For a discussion of how the performances and lives of Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand can be co-opted for a lesbian gaze, see Stacy Wolf, A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). 59. Most critics mentioned Hair in their reviews of Rent; see, for example, Ben Brantley, ‘Rock Opera A la “Bohème” and “Hair”’, New York Times (14 February 1996), pp. C11ff.; Margo Jefferson, ‘“Rent” is Brilliant and Messy All at Once’, New York Times (25 February 1996), sec. 2: pp. 5ff.; Peter Marks, ‘Looking on Broadway for a Bohemian Home’, New York Times (26 February 1996), pp. C9ff.; Frank Rich, ‘East Village Story’, New York Times (2 March 1996), p. 19; and Anthony Tommasini, ‘The Seven-Year Odyssey That Led to “Rent”’, New York Times (17 March 1996), sec 2: pp. 7ff.. A number of the arguments made here in support of Rent as carnivalistic could be applied to Hair as well, although not as fully, I believe. 60. I add the qualifier ‘to many’ to acknowledge recent arguments that drag is no longer transgressive, subversive, or any more performative than any other behavior. See, for example, Laurence Senelick's The Changing Room, in which he argues that drag queens have become ‘Disneyfied and safe’ and, referencing bell hooks, that they have ‘allowed themselves to be coopted by the consumer culture, thereby losing much of their subversive and transgressive power’ (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 492, 505. Certainly, the image of the drag queen is more prominent in popular culture, from RuPaul to Dame Edna to Hairspray (1988), from Tootsie (1982) to La Cage Aux Folles and its film adaptation Birdcage (1996). Perhaps Senelick or hooks do not know anyone like my conservative, Republican parents, who would never view drag as anything other than subversive; their reaction would be similar to the negative reactions of some of the people encountered in the Australian outback by the drag-queen triumvirate in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Given that those of my parent's ilk re-elected President George W. Bush by a majority vote, I would argue that much of America still views drag as an ‘identity’ apart from normative, as a disguise, costume, or performance, and that, particularly as Rent tours, many audience members read Angel's drag as such. For an insightful discussion of drag and its use in musical theatre, see the chapter ‘“Here She Is, Boys!”: On Divas, Drag,and Immortality’ in Clum, Something for the Boys, pp. 133 – 165. 61. Of course, Larson could not have foreseen that that marketing would have included, to some extent, exploitation of the fact of his own death. 62. Scott Miller suggests that this song contains an insider's joke for La Bohème fans: ‘In Bohème, Mimi comes back the second time because she has lost her key on Rodolfo's floor when she fainted. In Rent, Mimi comes back the second time also because she lost her key, but it's a different kind of key – a kilo of cocaine. (Key is drug users' slang for kilo.)’. Rebels with Applause, p. 187. 63. Interestingly, Bakhtin describes a ritual, ‘moccoli’, characteristic of Roman carnival: ‘Each participant in the carnival carried a lighted candle (“a candle stub”) and each tried to put out another's candle with the cry “Sia ammazzato!” (Death to thee!)’. ‘Carnival’, p. 254. 64. For an insightful comparison of Bakhtin's theory of the grotesque body with Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection, viewed as an extension of Bakhtin's theory, see Vice, Introducing Bakhtin. 65. Opera and operetta are exceptions. 66. For analyses of this phenomenon, see Peter Marks, ‘As Giants In Suits Descend on Broadway’, New York Times (19 May 2002), sec. 2: pp. 1ff., and Maurya Wickstrom, ‘Commodities, Mimesis, and The Lion King: Retail Theatre for the 1990s’, Theatre Journal, 51:3 (1999), 285 – 298. 67. Quoted in McDonnell, Rent, p. 23. 68. Quoted in Scanlan, ‘In Profile’, p. 77. 69. John Docker, Postmodernism and Popular Culture: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 70. Carl Rhodes, ‘Coffee and the Business of Pleasure: The Case of Harbucks vs. Mr Tweek’, Culture and Organization, 8:4 (2002), 293 – 306; Paul R. Kohl, ‘Looking Through a Glass Onion: Rock and Roll as a Modern Manifestation of Carnival’, Journal of Popular Culture, 27:1 (Summer 1993), 143 – 161; Linda J. Holland-Toll. ‘Bakhtin's Carnival Reversed: King's The Shining as Dark Carnival’, Journal of Popular Culture, 33:2 (Fall 1999), 131 – 147. See also, for example, Karen Bettez Halnon's ‘Inside Shock Music Carnival: Spectacle as Contested Terrain’, Critical Sociology, 30:3 (2004), 743 – 779. 71. Wayne Hoffman, ‘The Curtain Rises in a New Era for Broadway’, Billboard (21 April 2001), p. 1.