Rent: Live

I've seen Rent on stage numerous times. I've had grace to see Rent on Broadway, off Broadway, in many small and large theaters, with both small and large budgets. I've watched the film version & prior TV presentation. Rent is, obviously, a favorite of mine. This 'Live' presentation has a cast with much proven talent. Some of the crew are familiar for their ace work. I had high hopes. This was such a disappointment & waste of amazing material & many fine efforts. It was hard to follow the staging, seemingly due to combination of jerky flow of sets to lack of cohesive direction of camera work. The quality of the choreography varied from professional to grammar school rehearsal. The greatest issue were the absurd cuts for commercial. That may be the root cause of why so much else, the staging, camera work, choreography, was choppy. Would seem possible Fox placed focus on commercials. Yes, with commercial TV one does expect breaks, but some rational scheduling of them should have been done. As it was, the flow of the music, dance and vocals was repeatedly lost. The powerful human emotion inherent in Rent kept on being broken time and again. A shame. For the performers and crew who did their all, I'd give a 8/10. For how Fox chose to mismanage and cheapen those efforts and, truly, disrespect Jonathan Larson's Rent, I'd give 2/10. A shame.

So sad Jonathan Larson isn't around to give his input into the productions that followed his magnificent Broadway premiere but I think he still would be humbled to know that his play continues to resonate with so many people over 20 years later. Overall, not bad being mostly the taped dress rehearsal. Sets were a bit of a jumble but the acting and singing decent enough to keep our interest until that final tearjerking live reunion with the original Broadway cast which really made this memorable.

As a confirmed #renthead who has seen the stage and film versions more times than I'm willing to admit, here are my thoughts: -I know it's a lot to ask to find vocalists who can compare with the original cast, but Fox was obviously more concerned with hiring names teenagers would recognize than anyone with actual talent. Hudgens is fine, probably the best of the bunch, but she's no Idina. The rest of them have virtually no range and put no power into the performances. -I kinda like the expanded staging, but the audience being in the middle of everything distracts from the story and turns it into just another concert. -The censorship of certain lines and content is anathema to what the show is about. If Fox wasn't brave enough to do it as it was written, they shouldn't have done it. Larsen would have a fit knowing it was on Fox anyway. -It feels like the director knew the vocals weren't up to par based on the comparative volume of the musical accompaniment. The instruments, particularly the piano, would sometimes drown out the vocals.

Overall, it was just meh. Not enough talent, not enough energy, not enough anything. I would expect something hyped this much would be much better. 3/10

What do you get when you take Rent and put it on TV during prime time? All the actors had their volumes cut. Many of them seemed to be out of their range. Where Rent thrived on grit, this performance strove for pocket lint. The last three minutes with the original cast was not enough to save this. I'm sad, now.

I love that Fox wanted to tackle something as complex as RENT. The set, direction, art and costumes are all phenomenally done. The band is GREAT. But the casting of this musical...I just don't understand using "up and comers" who CANNOT sing over established stage vets who could rock the house down. Collins was amazing. Mark was great. Other than that...it's a hard pass from me on the cast. Valentina was AWFUL. Jesus. I get that she's "hot" right now, but she should not sing on stage. Can we get someone like Todrick? A guy who can pull off drag AND actually sing and dance. This was a valiant attempt at doing something strong and provoking, but it fell tragically flat