Rent: Live

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

The live audience drowns out sections of the production. The were even moments that the camera focused on the audience which stops the storytelling cold. And it felt like theater in the round which I always find distracting. Other than that it was nicely done with some great performances.

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'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.