“Without You” by Anthony Rapp. Directed by Steven Maler. Presented by ATG Colonial at the Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through April 14.
By Michele Markarian
At twenty-two, Anthony Rapp, hailing from Joliet, Illinois, and living in the East Village with his brother, Adam, was broke. A chance audition, for which he was late, led him to be cast in a workshop production of a new musical called “Rent.” The composer, Jonathan Larson, was a quirky, friendly person who soon became a good friend to Rapp. “Rent,” Rapp told his young cast right before thanking them for being his new friends, was about his friends, most of them dead. He also infuriated one of Rapp’s party guests, who had asked Larson, “What do you do for a living?’ and was told, “I am the future of musical theater.” “Rent” was Larson’s labor of love based on one of his favorite operas, “La Boheme”; tragically, Larson did not live to see the musical mounted on Broadway or off after the success of its studio production. He died suddenly and unexpectedly the night before the show was supposed to have its Off-Broadway premiere.
Rapp was dealing with the illness of his biggest fan at the time – his mother, whose belief and love in him never wavered. She had had a cancerous tumor removed, which, of course, distressed her son, who was living far from Illinois and could ill afford to fly there often. Larson had introduced Rapp to a non-profit organization called Friends In Deed, an organization founded to help people struggling with terminal illness, death, and grief. One of its founders, Cynthia O’Neal, had started the group in order to better cope with the death of her husband from cancer. She tells Rapp, “Everything happens as it does. It can’t happen any other way”, an oddly comforting dose of reality therapy that Rapp tunes into, despite his terror of losing his mother.
Over the next three years, Rapp’s mother has several more surgeries, leaving her more vulnerable each time, although she is able to fly to New York to see her son perform “Rent” at the Nederlander Theatre. On one of his visits home, when Rapp’s mother asks him what he would like of hers when she’s gone, he answers, “I want there to be nothing between us, nothing unfinished.” His sexuality, which had been a sore point between them, is resolved and accepted. Still, as he waits between surgeries and anticipates bad news with each phone call, he asks himself, in song, “Is this another time? Or is this the last time?” Anyone with an ailing parent can relate to this sentiment.
More than thirty years after “Rent,” Rapp’s voice is still strong, if not stronger. He has assembled a first-rate group of musicians, with Daniel A. Weiss providing musical direction and orchestration. Eric Southern’s lighting design, Brian Ronan’s sound design, and David Bengali’s projection design give impressive texture and richness to the piece. Maler keeps the pace building. The most moving moment of the show is a montage of Rapp’s photos projected onto a large screen: Larson, Rapp’s beautiful mother, and a heartbreaking, loving note that his mother writes in her final illness to be placed on the wall of the Nederlander along with others’ notes. Rapp’s final song to his mother, “Without You,” is testimony to their love. As he reminds us with a song from Rent, “Another Day”, “Give in to love or live in fear”. Rapp has clearly chosen to live in love. For tickets and more information, go to: https://www.bostontheatrescene.com/shows-and-events/without-you/
