Rent!

The night before my birthday, Joe and I both left work early and caught a train into the city.

We got in, wandered around, and ended up eating at McDonald's which is highly unlike us.  

At 8pm we were going to see my favorite musical, Rent, at it's home The Nederlander Theater, for what would most likely be the last time.  It is closing after a 12 year run on Broadway.  Sigh.

While waiting in the street for the door to open, a man approached us, asking if we were going to the show.  Having lived in rougher sections of New Haven, and worked in downtown Hartford, I did what I was accustomed to doing when strangers approached me...I ignored him, and payed what must have seemed like a ridiculous amount of attention to my tiny digital camera.  Joe offered a curt reply, yes we were.  The man asked if we had our tickets already.  My camera got even more interesting to me, and Joe again replied, we did have our tickets.  Too bad, the man said, I have tickets I wasn't going to use and I am trying to give them away.  

Yeah, right, sure thing Mister.  Do we look like we were born yesterday?

We watched him try to give the tickets away to several more couples, all of whom already had their tickets.

We forgot about the man as the doors finally opened and we entered and were escorted to our seats, a few rows back from the stage, just left of dead center.  Awesome.  Excitement coursed through my blood at the sight of the stage.  Rent's set could be picked up, carried off, and dropped in the desert somewhere and would still remain instantly recognizable to any Rent-head.  I love it.

More and more people filtered in, as curtain time approached.  Lo and behold, the man who had been trying to give away his tickets walked down the aisle and took his seat.  Two realizations hit me simultaneously.  The first being that he had apparently been unsuccessful at unloading his tickets.  The second, that not only had he been telling us the truth, he had offered us (basically to the sides of our collective faces as we tried to blow him off) front row tickets.  

I wished I had been nicer to him.  I liked our seats better, since I prefer to be in the center, and his seats were all the way to the right of the center orchestra section (though I know these seats to be all right, since I had taken Joe to see the touring group as a surprise for his birthday once and those were the seats we had).  But still.  I should have at least had the courtesy to look him in the eye as he tried to talk to me.  It is unfortunate that so many vignettes in my memory have trained me, as a female, to avoid male strangers.

The lights went down, those first few notes on guitar reverberated through my bones, and the show began.  At first I was apprehensive.  Having seen the play multiple times on Broadway, as well as multiple times on tour, I knew the characters.  I knew how their clothes should fit, what color their hair should be, the inflection and emotion with which they should belt out each note.  Instantly things were different...brunettes had become blondes, musical intonation and timing were off...  I took a deep breath and hoped for the best.

The best is exactly what the cast gave me.

I tried my best to sit still and not sing, but I was an unabashed failure.  I danced in my seat and quietly sang the entire score.  Joe noticed, but refrained from trying to stop me, knowing he would be greatly unsuccessful.  The cast also noticed, several times making direct eye contact with me as I energetically shared in their performance.  

In the midst of this quiet singing and seat dancing, I laughed hard at things that had never seemed to me as quite so funny, and cried in greater earnest at moments that had never seemed quite as poignant.  The play was as amazing as it had ever been, but I think I was seeing it differently, knowing it was the last time this theater and I would Rent our time together.  In honor of that fact, I mooed even louder.

I am so very sad that this play has to close.  The final date had originally been in the spring, but has now been pushed back until September.  I have not been able to convince Joe that we should go see it again one last time, and truthfully, I'm not sure any performance could be as magical as this one had been.

So I am content in knowing that the play will tour again, and in 2009 will feature some of the original cast members.  I highly recommend you see it.  And if you do, and you see some crazy girl mooing and bouncing around in her seat, it just may be me. :)