Books, Arts & Manners: Lowering the Rent

I HAVE this theory: in any given musical after 1970, there will come a moment in which the protagonist is on stage alone and sings the words, “Who am I?” This may be called the hokey-identity-crisis moment, when the character is torn between his principles and his self-interest, and tempted to take the easy way out, which threatens to damn his soul and shave twenty minutes off the second act.

In Rent, the new great hope of the American musical theater, this does not happen—or at least not quite. The protagonist, Mark, an aspiring video artist who cannot pay his rent and has no electricity or food in his house, is offered a lucrative assignment from some cheesy network news magazine. Will he take the job and end his financial plight, or will he preserve his principles—though we never quite learn what those are—and turn the job down? At this point, Mark, on the verge of accepting, turns to the audience and says, “What am I doing?” Then his roommate, Roger, an equally insolvent rock poet, comes on stage and asks, “Who are you?” Now since he has known Mark for years and is not suffering from any psychotic disorder, despite a healthy drug habit, we assume that this question is meant metaphorically.

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James Gardner

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I HAVE this theory: in any given musical after 1970, there will come a moment in which the protagonist is on stage alone and sings the words, “Who am I?” This may be called the hokey-identity-crisis moment, when the character is torn between his principles and his self-interest, and tempted to take the easy way out, which threatens to damn his soul and shave twenty minutes off the second act.

In Rent, the new great hope of the American musical theater, this does not happen—or at least not quite. The protagonist, Mark, an aspiring video artist who cannot pay his rent and has no electricity or food in his house, is offered a lucrative assignment from some cheesy network news magazine. Will he take the job and end his financial plight, or will he preserve his principles—though we never quite learn what those are—and turn the job down? At this point, Mark, on the verge of accepting, turns to the audience and says, “What am I doing?” Then his roommate, Roger, an equally insolvent rock poet, comes on stage and asks, “Who are you?” Now since he has known Mark for years and is not suffering from any psychotic disorder, despite a healthy drug habit, we assume that this question is meant metaphorically.