RENT is my second favourite Christmas movie and I watch it (or the Live Broadway dvd) every Christmas eve. And I've seen a variety of stagings of the show. Which is all to say that I know the show very well.
The highlights are the clever staging, far more elaborate than theatre in the round. The show has more in common with a high-budget stadium concert tour than a theatre setting. The stage is also built to play to multiple, moving cameras and so the live audience is sometimes jammed in.
That said, the cleverest incorporation of the live audience is in the protest scene. By setting up barricades and uniformed police at the front of the live crowd, the staging gets a bit meta and turns the audience into the attendees at the in-story event.
Vanessa Hudgens would have been better used in the more meaty role of Mimi, but shines nonetheless in the much-smaller role of Maureen. Of all the versions I've seen, Hudgens wrings more out of "Over The Moon" than ever before. It is beefed up into an even more pretentious performance art piece and it becomes a great showpiece.
The negatives come mostly from speeding up the show to fit the timeslot. The opening of both Acts feel hurried and Seasons of Love particularly suffers for it. The film, for example, is the same length but cut two songs to get there.
The rest of the cast is uneven and the show lacks the emotion of other stagings.
Overall, if you have seen another version, just fastforward to Hudgens' big number and the finale and you are good to go. If you haven't seen another version, please don't start here.
Review of Rent: Live
