There are not happy endings for all of these folks. The threat of early death — we're reminded of it even by beepers prompting characters to take their AZT — is ever present. But so is an urgency to squeeze as much as possible into what time remains. The show is carried along by that urgency, erupting in a climactic, defining, first-act-capping song, ''La Vie Boheme.'' With near-violent energy, the words are hurled at us: ''Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion/Creation, vacation, mucho masturbation/Compassion, to fashion, to passion when it's new/To Sontag, to Sondheim, to anything taboo...''

Larson's melodic outpourings are more consistently impressive than his lyrics. Though many of the lines are adroit, some feel like first drafts (''Who do you think you are?/Leaving me alone with my guitar''). But at their best, Larson's songs — aimed more for the heart than those of his rather cerebral idol, Stephen Sondheim — are gloriously overbrimming with life. (The original cast CD is being recorded by David Geffen's DreamWorks label.)

Rent is a landmark not because it's a rock musical — there have been others since Hair in 1967, mostly undistinguished — but because its whole sensibility, not just the music, is of the moment. Larson may not have been commercially oriented. But Rent's phenomenal success may embolden producers to risk other musicals by young people and about their world. And in the insular industry of Broadway, that would be something really big.

Originally posted May 10, 1996 Published in issue #326 May 10, 1996 Order article reprints
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