Autenticity Blues

Village Voice
December 10, 1996
By Mandy Stadtmiller

How do you teach bohemia? On the Nederlander Theatre stage, a messy list of icons is rattled off in 4/4 time by a messy troupe of actors woven together in thrift-store patches. The sold-out audience sits enraptured as the rebellion is ticked off in singsong glory too fast to catch subtleties: "To Sontag, to Sondheim, to anything taboo/Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and Cage/Lenny Bruce/Langston Hughes/To the stage/To Uta/To Buddha/To Pablo Neruda, too."

They are Rent's original cast of 15 singing "La Vie Boheme," the fight song of the counterculture according to Jonathan Larson. They have seen it all: the death of Larson the night before the show previewed in New York, the Bloomingdale's boutique, the $1 million record deal with David Geffen.

Almost 200 miles away on the Shubert Theatre stage in Boston, another cast of 15 prances around colorfully, also punching out the "La Vie Boheme" anthem: "Pee-wee Herman, German wine, turpentine,/Gertrude Stein, Antonioni, Bertolucci,/Kurosawa, Carmina Burana."

Rent's dream-work expansion has begun. A new cast full of hip yet vulnerable actors has been picked to represent East Village culture through the fine-tooth comb of the Bernard Telsey Casting Agency. In July the call went out for "singers who truly display a quality of street life, can move well, and have a good time." Auditions that would be tight for another show were all wrong for Rent, casting director Telsey explained. "Rent, you want those raw, frazzled mistakes. But you want to know that you can help mold it or shape it. You don't want something that's canned and polished."

Such was the trick: having the right street appearance to go with the right voice, the right stage presence, and the right lack of props. Telsey estimated more than 6000 singers were heard for the off-Manhattan staging. After several callbacks, the chosen few were announced in October and ushered into the legend--already sealed tight with Tony and Pulitzer decorations, media fanfare, and Democratic National Convention glory.

Once inside the bubble, the Boston cast's education into "street life" was promptly begun. They were given a study packet that one cast member described as "a primer of bohemia," explaining all the characters from Sontag to Carmina Burana nodded to in "La Vie Boheme." They met with the founder of Friends in Deed, an HIV support group alluded to in the play. They visited the Bell Café, where Larson wrote much of Rent and which he refers to in the show as the Life Café. They heard a tape of Larson singing his protagonist's ballad, "One Song Glory," and met his personal "tribe." They saw his famed fourth-floor walk-up with the bathtub in the kitchen.

"We've met his father. We've met his friends. We've heard when they met," said C.C. Brown, 29, who plays anarchist Tom Collins. "This is more research than any other show will give you. When I did Saigon, we just watched a couple of Vietnam movies."

That's because one of Rent's playing cards is authenticity. In auditions Telsey played close attention to candidates, judging them half on vocal ability and "can they really do what's required" and the other half for personality. Brown seemed like a natural as Collins. For instance, he smiles and you just feel the way you do with Jesse martin," who plays Collins on Broadway.

Brown also fit the part well, packaging nicely the right unpackaged style. To match Martin's sweater, cap, open vest, and warm hint of beard, Brown went shopping for something "different but similar" before his audition in front of director Michael Greif. He bought a long khaki vest, an African beanie, and didn't shave for a week and a half. At this stage, Brown also had the casting director's feedback to help him get into character. "Telsey said things to me like, 'Don't look like you got so much money.'"

By the time he was brought together for a photo shoot with Stephan Alexander, the actor who would play Angel, his drag-queen lover, Brown was "willing to do anything to get the job." Brown picked Alexander up. Brown rode Alexander piggyback. "I went with the rule of being unorthodox."

So did many others. Alexander actually snuck back into the line of 4000 at the original open call because he wasn't happy with this first audition. Telsey described him as "just so in the best way 'sneaky.'" Glenn Sabalza, a rival Angel candidate from Miss Saigon, auditioned his second time complete with drumsticks and drag makeup. Telsey said the difference was what felt real. "Nothing against the Saigon guy, and it wound up being a great performance, but everybody still wants the authenticity of it. That's streety and more real and not performing the drag queen. Alexander is like the way Wilson [Wilson Jermaine Heredia who plays Angel on Broadway] was. Just so simple and so like wrap-him-around-your-arm."

There was a similar stripped-down appeal to the actor who was cast as Roger. Like Adam Pascal, who plays the HIV-positive musician on Broadway Sean Keller was, in Telsey's words, "a real rock 'n' roller." With guitar in hand, Keller performed "Like a Prayer" for Telsey, then performed the Beatles and Elvis on command. Telsey loved it. "He didn't even know what he was doing, had never done an audition, didn't have a resume, came in with his guitar, and after his audition--we're still going two hours later, we're done with auditions--and he's outside in front of my building, and he's just sitting on the floor playing his guitar. It was almost as if his case was open and you could throw money into it."

Previously a bartender and singer-songwriter, Keller said, "They were talking about wanting street credibility. I was like, all right, fine. I'll just be myself." At one point, during the audition process, the 24-year-old was called up by a casting-agent assistant and asked if he wanted the part because his attitude needed a little work. "I wasn't as nervous as they wanted me to be or something."

How actors approached their material made a world of difference. In watching Greif interact with a young hopeful trying out for the narrator's role of Mark, the struggle to communicate Rent's elaborate take on grit and despair became apparent.

After belting out U2's "One," the would-be narrator launched into the signature song "What You Own." "Don't breathe too deep/Don't think all day/Dive into work/Drive the other way...You're living in America/At the end of the millennium/You're what you own."

Greif told him to look deeper. "Even though the lyrics are saying, 'Let's celebrate the fact that we're all commercialized and let's get in our fancy cars and go,' he doesn't believe that. The song is about 'What part of myself am I going to have to cut off to make it in this commercialized world?' It's not, 'I'm going to survive it and I'm going to be a coward.' It's 'I can't, it kills me.'"

The actor paused. "Let me just think about it. All right."

After another run-through, Grief continued, "Instead of beginning to dismiss it, 'I hate that. Forget that. Fuck that." Instead tell us how astounding it is to you. Is that clear?" Musical director Tim Weil added "Put some real throaty stuff in. Especially on 'At the end of the mill-en-ee-um.' It definitely has the anger of the Who. 'We won't' get fooled again.'"

The actor plunged in again. "You're living in America/At the end of the mill-en-ee-uu-uuum. You're living in America/Leave your conscience at the tone."

Greif stopped him short. "I want it without the attitude."

"Okay, I gotcha. More ironic?"

Greif looked frustrated. "I saw what you were doing before as irony. I don't want any attitude."

After one more chorus, they moved on.

"It's really trying to get these people to just be pure with their talent," Telsey explained. "That's what makes them accessible to a Broadway audience."

But how do you teach authenticity?

© Village Voice