Skip to main content

REVIEW: Rent at the Stratford Festival

int(100637)
iPhoto caption: Photo by David Hou
/By / Jun 5, 2023
SHARE

While the Stratford Festival’s production of Rent boasts otherworldly vocal ability and a tender emotional centre, the loose threads of the rock opera’s book by Jonathan Larson waft in the wind, making the musical theatre wunderkind’s untimely death sting even more.

Rent offers a simple story, echoing the opera La Bohème: it’s Christmas Eve in New York City, and the threat of eviction looms over a ragtag group of bohemian artists. Each character nurses a different personal trauma, from HIV/AIDS to homelessness to substance abuse, and as the musical unfurls, those problems intersect, capturing members of the squad in the bloodthirsty web of capitalism. 

The hiccups appear gradually: some characters navigate dissatisfying narrative arcs; some lyrics feel on-the-nose beyond recourse; the ending feels in need of an ending. 

What hurts is that those are all problems which might have been fixed in the Broadway previews of Rent, the crucial development period for a musical’s creative team to make nips and tucks to a project before it opens to the world. Jonathan Larson didn’t live long enough to see Rent through its development process, nor its meteoric rise to the forefront of theatrical discourse and practice in the ‘90s. As dramatized in his autobiographical rock monologue tick…tick…BOOM!, Larson was a neurotic perfectionist, with a keen sense of what a perfect musical should be. 

And while it may be overly romantic to suppose Larson would have fixed the rough spots in his magnum opus had he lived longer, suppose I do. Even all these years later, Rent still feels unfinished.

Which brings us to the Stratford production of Rent.

Director Thom Allison has pieced together an energetic product, sparkling under Michael Walton’s Day-Glo lighting and Ming Wong’s appropriately grimy costumes. Exploding from the smaller-than-it-looks thrust stage of the Festival Theatre, Allison’s Rent at times feels like a three-ring circus, with seductive vignettes and Marc Kimelman’s inventive choreography embedded into every corner of the playing space. There’s a lot to look at, and against Larson’s uniquely lush, difficult score, the production overwhelms the senses.

And to top it all off, those actors are singing their hearts out — perhaps even too much. This is a formidable cast of belters, who frequently show off almost morbidly impressive high notes. Andrea Macasaet, an alum of the Broadway run of Six, plays the down-on-her-luck Mimi, and she frequently treats us to the indelibly warm middle glimmer of her vocal range. The role is a demanding one, and the higher high notes at times felt pinched to me on opening night, but Macasaet simmered into the role as the performance progressed, eventually solidifying herself as a standout, right alongside Lee Siegel, who gives a sublime vocal and emotional performance as Tom Collins. Erica Peck keeps the high-strung Maureen from running away from her, and she too gets to flex a showy, in-control belt, against the gentler, more velvety performance of her on-stage girlfriend, Joanne, played by the lovely Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane. Robert Markus hovers just outside the gang as budding filmmaker Mark, and he nails it, with his clear-as-a-bell voice and mastery of Mark’s loveable geekery, while Kolton Stewat’s Roger is a quieter, more glowering presence, and in fine vocal form during the brooding “One Song Glory.”

And finally, there’s Angel, the HIV-positive drag queen played and sung exquisitely by Nestor Lozano Jr. Theirs is a standout performance of the Stratford Festival’s opening week, bringing the simultaneous sensitivity and sass the role of Angel demands. 

Overall, in both the leads and the ensemble, there’s a touch of a yelling problem — it often feels like the cast is fighting to be heard over one another, and over the orchestra, helmed by Franklin Brasz. These seem to be mic level problems which might be ironed out over time, and save some actors’ voices in the process.

For me, this Rent is a fine one, but the divots in Larson’s book require more innovative direction to tie the musical together in a way that feels satisfying. Allison’s direction has pockets of excellence — the presentation of a real AIDS quilt in the show’s final beat is touching and dramaturgically potent — but I craved that innovation elsewhere in the direction. The love for Larson and his work shines through this production, and that’s to be commended; I just missed some of the directorial scrutiny needed to patch the holes in Larson’s unfinished work.

When it premiered in the ‘90s, Rent became a sensation, the poster child for experimentation in American musical theatre. While the Stratford production dutifully honours that original production’s legacy, I’m curious to see how it might settle into itself, and perhaps even expand, as the summer run progresses.


Rent runs at the Stratford Festival through October 28. Tickets are available here.


Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

Aisling Murphy
WRITTEN BY

Aisling Murphy

Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.

LEARN MORE

Comments

  • Anne Tait May 10, 2025

    I hadn’t read Aisling’s review or any others, before seeing today the Scarborough Music Theatre’s 2025 production of Rent – performed by a very talented cast.
    As I watched the show I was thinking how Larson’s book should be revised, to be more focused – setting up and clarifying
    each character’s arc more strongly, and feeling that the final scene, though emotionally moving, wasn’t really an ending.
    AND complaining that the orchestra’s volume – especially the drums – was obscuring the clever lyrics of many of the songs.
    Then I read this review! – astonished to find it articulating my own response so well. …. Anne Tait, Toronto May 2025

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


/
Adam Francis Proulx, Elm Reyes, Kay-Ann Ward in a Toronto Fringe Festival promo photo by Joy Adeola. iPhoto caption: Adam Francis Proulx, Elm Reyes, Kay-Ann Ward in a Fringe promo photo by Joy Adeola.

REVIEWS: Toronto Fringe Festival 2025

This collection of Toronto Fringe Festival capsule reviews will be updated throughout the festival with writing from 20 different critics.

Masae Day, Landon Doak, Michelle Fisk in 'The Wind Coming Over the Sea.' iPhoto caption: Masae Day, Landon Doak, and Michelle Fisk in 'The Wind Coming Over the Sea.' Photo by Lyon Smith.

REVIEW: A new Emma Donoghue musical takes root at the Blyth Festival

As a resident of southwestern Ontario, what struck me most is how deeply rooted in the region The Wind Coming Over the Sea feels. It's a lively reminder of the cultural inheritances that continue to shape the area today.

By Deanne Kearney
The cast of 'Major Barbara.' iPhoto caption: The cast of 'Major Barbara.' Photo by David Cooper.

REVIEW: Shaw Festival’s metatheatrical Major Barbara is sharp and subversive

Director Peter Hinton-Davis draws on a light smattering of Brechtian techniques — acknowledgements of artifice that enrich and vivify Major Barbara’s clash of morals.

By Liam Donovan
The company of Talk is Free Theatre's 'The Frogs.' iPhoto caption: The company of 'The Frogs.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.

REVIEW: In Barrie, Talk Is Free Theatre delivers well-crafted outdoor staging of rare Sondheim musical The Frogs

Staged inches from the audience by director Griffin Hewitt, the show commendably captures the free-wheeling, anarchic spirit of the text. It’s a toad-ally great opportunity to see this rarity in the froggy flesh.

By Ilana Lucas
Jeff Lillico as Ralph with Yoshie Bancroft as Mitsue in 'Forgiveness.' iPhoto caption: Jeff Lillico as Ralph with Yoshie Bancroft as Mitsue in 'Forgiveness.' Photo by David Hou.

REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Forgiveness tells a deeply personal story on a sprawling scale

Presented in an increasingly tense political moment, Forgiveness resonates on a level that is part reflection, part warning.

By Charlotte Lilley
Promo photo for Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree. iPhoto caption: Photo courtesy of Luminato Festival.

REVIEW: Is Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree worth seeing twice at Luminato?

Crouch tests the limits of theatrical representation, improvisation, and authorship. While I’m usually a sucker for exactly those types of experiments, I ultimately found An Oak Tree a bit underwhelming.

By Ryan Borochovitz