For Artists, Growing Up Is Still Hard to Do

No one has AIDS, and there are no transvestites. Played by a small band that includes a violin and a cello, the music (by Joshua Salzman) is also softer and more contemplative. But, man, is there angst: youthful, idealistic, blissfully cathartic angst.

The musical’s most memorable refrain, “Hungover (from my twenties),” is a meticulously calculated millennial anthem.

The show, from the CAP21 Theater Company , centers on the 28-year-old Waverly, a part-time bartender and legal temp, who originally moved to New York to be an actress. Throughout “Next Thing You Know” she and three conflicted companions struggle with growing up too fast, and yet somehow not quickly enough. They must shed their vestigial adolescence and formally and irreversibly close the door to some of those infinite possibilities they were promised as children. In the process they do all the unintentionally hurtful things that people do when they’re busy finding themselves.

In other words, this thinly plotted show — more a portrait than a plot, really — is an 80-minute quartet of quarter-life crises. Unlike their “Rent” counterparts from a generation earlier, these 20-somethings have anxieties that are not directed at an authority figure, societal hypocrisy or a terrifying new disease, but at themselves. Are you a failure, the musical asks, if you outgrow your childhood dreams before you achieve them?

In examining this question, the librettist and lyricist Ryan Cunningham is kind to his intricately flawed characters. The cast is also amiable and understated, ideal for CAP21’s black box rigged as an intimate theater in the round. Particularly impressive is Adam Kantor, who portrays Darren, a neurotic playwright daylighting as a temp. (Mr. Kantor played Mark in the closing cast of “Rent.”) His restrained rendition of “How About You?” a patter-ish ode to that lubberly first run-in with an ex — is the show’s comic highlight (“You seeing anyone?,” he asks, and then sings: “ ‘Cause I’m seeing someone./Well, not seeing./Just sleeping with her a lot”).

Sure, some of the songs are forced or forgettable. And Terry Berliner’s direction can feel didactic at times, especially when actors take a Long, Meaningful Pause after unleashing words of wisdom like, “At least having regrets means you chose something.” But the show still achieves a nearly effortless resonance — especially with any 20-something who has recently moved to the Big Pond that is the Big Apple.

JONATHAN LARSON - RENT LYRICS

Mark:
How do you document real life
When real life's getting more like fiction each day?
Headlines, breadlines, blow my mind, and now this deadline...
Eviction or pay.
RENT!

Roger:
How do you write a song
When the chords sound wrong, though they once sounded
Right and rare.
When the notes are sour
Where is the power
You once had to ignite the air?

Mark:
And we're hungry and frozen

Roger:
Some life that we've chosen

Both:
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Last year's Rent

Mark:
We light candles

Roger:
How do you start a fire
When there's nothing to burn
And if feels like something's
Stuck in your flue

Mark:
How can you generate heat
when you can't feel your feet

Both:
Jonathan Larson Rent lyrics found on http://www.lyricsty.com/jonathan-larson-rent-lyrics.html
And they're turnin blue!

Mark:
You light up a mean blaze

Roger:
With posters

Mark:
And screen plays

Both:
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Last year's Rent

Joanne:
Don't screen, Maureen, its me Joanne
Your substitute production manager
Hey hey hey! (did you eat?)
Don't change the subject maureen
But darling...you havn't eaten all day!

You won't throw up
You won't throw up
The digital delay -
Didn't blow up (exactly)
There may have been one teeny tiny spark -
You're not calling Mark!

Collins:
How do you stay on your feet
When on every street
It's trick or treat
And tonight its trick
Welcome back to town
I should lie down
Everything's brown
And uh oh
I feel sick!

Rent, the complete book and lyrics of the Broadway musical

The New York Times book of Broadway, on the aisle for the unforgettable plays of the last century

The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin

Acts of intervention, performance, gay culture, and AIDS

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