As Selma Arts Center opens ‘RENT,’ a new generation will experience a story rooted in the ’90s. Is it still relevant?
By Olivia Pavao
Director Michael Christopher Flores is taking the Central Valley back in time to revisit a classic tale set in New York City’s East Village. Selma Arts Center opens “RENT” on Friday, July 11, and the show will run through Aug. 2.
Pictured above: “RENT” opens July 11 at Selma Arts Center. Photo: Dylan Villanueva Hardcastle
“RENT” is a rock musical written by Johnathan Larson that follows the lives of starving artists living in New York in the late ’80s and early ’90s. These young filmmakers, musicians and performers face poverty, illness and pressures of society as they try to live authentically through tough times. It is loosely based on the famous opera “La Bohème” by Giacomo Puccini. I’ve seen “La Bohème” before — in London! — but I’ve never seen “RENT.”
If I’m being fully transparent here. I didn’t really find myself connecting with the opera. Of course, I can appreciate a classic Puccini, and yeah, the story was sad. However, it’s not something I personally hit it off with – so when I saw that Flores was putting on this blast into Broadway’ past, I pose a question.
“RENT” began its journey on stage back in 1994, 10 years before I was even born. What aspects within the story will someone my age relate to?
I sit down with Flores to discuss how “RENT” is still applicable to a new generation of theatergoers.
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” ‘RENT’ is tackling issues that are very integral to that time period, as well as other interpersonal relationships that I think everyone deals with, that are very common for a lot of people within the early 20s age bracket that the characters are in,” said Flores. “I think there’s a connectivity there when you’re dealing with infidelity, parental stress and expectations, which is all embedded in the play, aside from the major thing being the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”
The act of preserving is at the heart of the play, It’s the mechanism that is helping get the community through the epidemic, he says.
“I think mortality as a conversation is something that is brought up a lot and is probably one of many people’s biggest fears. I think something that a lot of people can relate with is, ‘How can I capture and take and hold onto this moment, because I don’t know when it’s ever going to happen again?’”
Social media is a newer generation’s newest act of preservation. Flores explains how such platforms as TikTok and Instagram have given people my age a voice in the same way that Mark used his camera as his in the show.
“Social media in itself is an act of activism, and it’s the fastest way right now to get things out there,” he says. “What was that like for people in the late 80s to 90s who were trying to fight for the cause? What were they doing? And that is what we’re seeing in ‘RENT.’ The moral of it doesn’t change, because things that happened in ‘RENT’ are still happening today. Even though there are advancements in HIV and AIDS, the queer community is still being targeted as well as other marginalized communities. The moral compass of it doesn’t change. We still have to be vigilant, but it just kind of changes in the way of functionality.”
After talking to Flores, I’m seeing “RENT” in a new light. He describes Selma Arts Center’s production of “RENT” as evocative, raw and truthful, and I think that now, more than ever, that’s the kind of theater that people in my generation need to see.
Next I turn to J. Daniel Herring, a theater professor at Fresno State who directed “RENT” in 2021.
Herring takes a similar stance to Flores, explaining that the themes in “RENT” remain pertinent, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing issues with HIV/AIDS and transgender rights.
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“I think the sensitivity and the empathy that audiences may have been feeling about the characters in ‘RENT’ when we did the production must have been stronger than it had been 10 years ago, or maybe even at the time that ‘RENT’ premiered,” Herring says. “Because even when ‘RENT’ premiered, there were still, in society, people that were saying, ‘Oh, well, I don’t have AIDS. I don’t know what that’s like,’ and could sort of separate themselves from it.”
As someone who was in high school in 2021, Herring’s insights really resonated with me. The isolation and fear I felt during the COVID pandemic would definitely be applicable to me here.
Herring ends our conversation by reiterating that he is a forever fan of “RENT” because of its ability to touch the heart of any audience member. In his eyes, there is something in the show that anyone can relate to, regardless of the subject matter.
“Any topic, when you deal with discriminating against a group of people, it doesn’t matter what the topic is, if you’re discriminating against a group of people based on one single, solitary issue, then I think that’s wrong,” Herring says. “And so despite whatever that issue is, if you’re discriminating against them, ostracizing them, isolating them, then ‘RENT’ is still talking about that. It’s still dealing with that. And therefore you’re looking at that problem, you’re looking at that issue through the lens of ‘RENT.‘ ”
With everything going on in the world right now, I think a show like “RENT” is just what we need. It’s a show about community, love and living your life fully and with purpose – especially through times of hardship.
Olivia Pavao is a Fresno State journalism major and lifestyle editor for The Collegian, Fresno State’s student newspaper.
