| re: Theatergoer Walked Out of 'Rent' Because the 'Show Was About Gays' | |
| Last Edit: JereNYC 04:19 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 04:17 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Theatergoer Walked Out of 'Rent' Because the 'Show Was About Gays' - mikem 12:33 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| For most of us here, RENT has achieved a spot in the repertory alongside classics like OKLAHOMA! and MY FAIR LADY (I hesitate to label anything that opened in my lifetime as a "classic," because...well...you know...I still feel like I'm 30, most of the time). It hit a spot in the mid-90's cultural zeitgeist that few Broadway musicals do. Like HAMILTON more recently, if you were paying attention to culture (pop or not) in the mid-90's, you couldn't miss some reference to RENT. Even if you never saw it, and had no interest in it, you would've known what it was. And it has never left the national repertory in this country. I don't know if the UK is the same in this regard. But I guess we have to admit that there are people who were not at all paying attention or possibly were not yet born and have somehow missed it and have no idea what RENT could possibly be. I think the larger question here, regardless of how the theatre in question blurbed the show in their publicity materials, is are we expecting theatres to alert audience members about things like LGBT themes, drug use, adult language, or sexual situations beyond saying that the production may not be suitable for children? Can we expect adult people in the 2020's to be offended about these things any longer? I don't mean that they have to like seeing these things on stage, but there's a difference between not liking something and being offended by it. I mean...there's nothing in RENT that I don't literally see in my daily life. There's very little in it that I didn't see in the corridors of my suburban high school in the 1980's either. But I know my experience will differ from others'. I would love to go more in depth with this person and learn about their thought process. Are they a regular theatre-goer? If so, had they really never encountered a play with LGBT characters in it? If not, what led them to purchase tickets to RENT if they knew nothing about it? I don't really care why they dislike LGBT people, but given that, why go to the theatre, a well-known liberal bastion of LGBT people, at all? If the very presence of gay people was an issue for me, I'd avoid legitimate theatre altogether. |
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| Previous: | re: Theatergoer Walked Out of 'Rent' Because the 'Show Was About Gays' - mikem 12:33 pm EDT 03/15/22 |
| Next: | re: Theatergoer Walked Out of 'Rent' Because the 'Show Was About Gays' - KingSpeed 12:27 am EDT 03/16/22 |
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