La Vie Boheme at 35/18

Stage door at RENT in 2002 - with Sebastian Arcelus (Roger)

About 16 years ago, I discovered the music of Jonathan Larson. It wasn't my choice. I have a friend who adores RENT. She had seen it multiple times already, and she was turning 21, so it only seemed right that her best friends take her to New York to see it on Broadway. I didn't want to go. RENT was to be nothing like Jesus Christ Superstar or Phantom of the Opera - the shows I adored. But I went anyway.

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss..."

I sit in the theatre staring at the rough and messy set thinking that this is no where near as beautiful as a Paris Opera House. The orchestra starts, and I relax a bit. Two songs in, Angel - a cross dresser in a bright red Santa-themed dress - starts singing about how she played her drum and drove a dog crazy enough that he jumped off the roof. This is going exactly as I had assumed it would. I am told to "just go with it." So I do. A few songs later, a support group for patients living with HIV ("Life Support"), morphs into a solo about going out ("Out Tonight"). It's jarring to say the least, but it also works. 

"To being an us for once, instead of a them..."

Just before intermission, these group of bohemians gather for dinner to celebrate and sing about living "La Vie Boheme." And I am hooked. That song will always be my favorite. It's fun, and dark and celebrates differences above all else. A few songs later, the character that I hated for killing a dog in the beginning of the show moves me to tears. I'm sitting in my seat crying my eyes out because (spoiler alert!) Angel has died from complications of HIV. I can't explain it. It happens every time I see the show; every time I listen to the soundtrack, even all these years later. That moment in the show is nothing short of completely heartbreaking.

"When you're living in America, at the end of a millennium, you're not alone..."

By the end, I'm on my feet with the rest of the audience cheering for these characters that are living their lives the only way they know how. They're dealing with disease and drugs and poverty, but they're still living and growing and loving. It is truly beautiful and I am pretty much obsessed. 

"How do you document real life, when real life's getting more like fiction each day?"

After the show, I researched Jonathan Larson. He worked on this magnificent work for almost 6 years before readying it for Broadway but passed away suddenly a few days before its debut. He never witnessed the impact his work made on the world. I may have cried more about that, than during Angel's death. It seems almost too cruel that he was robbed of this opportunity. He was and still remains one of the most talented storytellers I've ever had the pleasure to witness and I can only imagine what he would have created over the last 20 years. Can you even imagine a Lin Manuel Miranda (who is one of his biggest fans) and Jonathan Larson collaboration? It's almost too beautiful to think about.

"Find glory, beyond the cheap colored lights..."

About a year later, because of our love for Larson, the same friends who took in RENT, went to see Tick...Tick...Boom on tour in Maryland. I didn't have the same reaction as I did to RENT. I remember sitting in the third row (maybe even closer, I just remember being super close to the stage), but not much else. I remember not really getting it. The storyline of RENT was so high-stakes - people were dying from drugs; from a terrible disease. The characters in Tick...Tick...Boom were living in New York, but were just trying to make up their mind on what to do with their lives. I was 20, and these feelings were so removed from where I was in life at that point. I would never be like these people...

"They're singing Happy Birthday, you just want to lay down and cry..."

That was then, and this is most definitely now. Cut to 15 years later. I've just discovered Tick...Tick...Boom for the second time. I happen upon the original Broadway cast on YouTube. I listen to "Why" and get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the one. You're trying very hard not to cry, but you realize it's not really working and your eyes start to overflow. Then "Johnny Can't Decide" and the waterworks start and, try as I may, I just can't make them stop. 

"Cages or Wings? Which do you prefer?"

It's hard to explain why this song hits me so hard. For one, it's that terrible realization again that this was an auto-biographical work and Jonathan Larson saw himself as Johnny. He finally made and accepted his one major life decision. In "Johnny Can't Decide" he proclaims: "I want to write music. I want to sit down, right now, at my piano, and write a song that people will listen to and remember, and do the same thing every morning, for the rest of my life." But about 6 years after he wrote those words, he was gone. It's a gut punch. But the fact that people still listen to his songs today, provides a small bit of solace. Then there's the personal connection I have to someone who can't decide. I'm about to turn 35, and the tick...tick...tick that Johnny feels is pretty loud right now. And yet, I still don't think I have any idea where it's going; what the BOOM is going to be or when it's going to happen. I want a husband. I want a family. I want a job I love. I just haven't found those yet. 

"Why does it take a catastrophe to start a revolution?"

I was 19 when I discovered RENT  and I was living an ordinary life with very few major decisions. That bohemian lifestyle appealed to me. These characters were living a difficult life, but were still fighting the good fight. If these kids could handle tenement housing, with no jobs, and no heat, I could most definitely take on the world with what I had - college, a family that loved me and friends. At the time, life was fairly simple, and I assumed it would always be. Who needed to make a choice right then and there? There was life to live first.

"How can you soar, when you're nailed to the floor..."

I'm now (almost) 35 - old by current standards and that ticking is getting louder and louder  each day. That constant search for a life and love that are meaningful, pitted against making the safe choice is what resonates with me the most today. Should I stick with the safe choice - stay in my job that I don't love, and settle in my small town - and give up on possibly reckless but mostly meaningful dreams?  Or do I go all in, and try to live a life I've imagined? By all intents and purposes, Kristen can't decide....

"Hey, what a way to spend a day..."

I'm no closer to an answer what my life will be than I was yesterday, but thanks to Jonathan Larson's works, I feel less alone in this predicament in the best ways possible. And for that, I'm more grateful to him than he will ever know.