But actors gotta eat, and neither that momentary episode of cognitive dissonance nor the recurrent “Bzzzt!’’ from a balky sound system over the next couple of hours managed to undermine what turned out to be a strong and spirited production.
Under the sure-handed direction of Benjamin Evett, this “Rent’’ navigates that fine line between the heart-on-its-sleeve earnestness essential to the success of this 1996 musical and the melodramatic excess that perpetually threatens to capsize it.
It helps enormously that New Rep mainstay Aimee Doherty, playing a narcissistic performance artist named Maureen, leaps so uninhibitedly at the chance to showcase her comic chops. John Ambrosino also excels as Mark, an aspiring filmmaker who is both participant in and observer of the action among a tightknit group of free spirits in the East Village who are trying to find what happiness they can in the middle of the AIDS epidemic.
The story behind “Rent’’ has entered showbiz lore and become nearly as well-known as the musical itself: How Jonathan Larson labored for years to craft a rock ’n’ roll version of Puccini’s “La Bohème,’’ only to die at age 35 of an aortic aneurysm just hours after the show’s final dress rehearsal.
So Larson never saw how huge a hit his musical became: the Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize; the 12-year run on Broadway; the fanatical young devotees who called themselves “Rentheads’’; the boost to the careers of such cast members as Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, and Jesse L. Martin; the inevitable film version; the way “Rent’’ carved out a niche as a generational and cultural touchstone.
