Sometimes life seems to be fiction, Rent made this clear. This is the first musical production made in Cuba in collaboration with a Broadway team, and it was premiered by young Cuban artists. Recently nobody could imagine an entire Broadway production on any Cuban theater billboard, and even less any production performed by Cuban musicians and actors. However, this is no longer fiction and now it is a reality that can be enjoyed by those who love that theater genre.
The main hall at the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center seemed to be just perfect for the staging of this work winner of a Pulitzer and four Tonies, although a part of its young cast will have to combine more with their characters so that some differences could desappear and Rent could be stronger.There are no one or two main characters in this production, but several with diverse personalities and deep personal problems, so a choir combination is required, which was achieve only in some scenes from La Vie Boheme.
Like any musical, it imposes the challenge to perform, dance and sing, there are just a few dialogues and its excellents songs were translated into Spanish, so phrases do not always complete a perfect grammar structure. Rent´s plot comes from the famous opera La Boheme, by Giacomo Puccini, but Jonathan Larson placed its characters in a poor neighborhood of New York during the 80s and included the social problems of that time.
The audience having some knowledge about the society and the music of that time, will be in a better position to fully understand the value of what had been showed by this piece premiered in 1996, when it was a taboo to talk about death and AIDS, homosexuals and bisexuals. In fact, it is still the source of prejudice and Rent breaks schemes, stands for love without barriers of gender or of any kind, it praises life, friendships, understanding, and shows the social and economic insecurity of that part of New York that rarely never appears in movies.
The characters try to live their desires because “there is nothing but now, nothing but here” and nobody has a cent to pay the rent, outside it is Christmas Eve and a choir clarifies: "but not here". The performances by Alberto Aguirre as Angel, Laritza Pulido as Joanne, Zammys Jimenez as Maureen, Reynier Morales as Collins, Joanna Gómez as Mimi, Arianna Delgado as Mark´s mother and Claudia Mulet as Alexi Darling, Roger´s mother and others, they all deserve great applauses.
The scenes of Joanne like "Tango Maureen", "Vamos bien" and "O me aceptas o vete", this last one shared with Maureen her stage couple, were the best of the piece, as well as the performance by Ángel, a travestite with AIDS who does not get tired from giving love. An indispensable support to the musical were the piano players, the guitar players, the bass player and the drum player, all of them having thr required organicity.
This production is the fruit of a collaboration between the Cuban National Council of Performing Arts and Nederlander Worldwide Entertainmet, from the United States. It will be in billboard until late March 2015, under the artistic direction of Andy Señor, Jr. Broadway came to Cuba with a message of respect, tolerance, affection and challenges for young artists who grew without many references in musicals, because this genre has been in crisis here. We hope Rent is a turning point towards the contemporary and a door to return to tradition.
Translated by: Osmany Ortiz González (Azurina)