Thirty years ago, playwright and composer Jonathan Larson’s magnum opus RENT debuted at the Nederlander Theatre just weeks after his untimely death. Inspired by Giacomo Puccini’s opera La bohème, the musical tells the story of struggling artists living in Manhattan’s East Village during the AIDS epidemic. The emotional story contains many outstanding songs, but “La Vie Bohème” in particular best encapsulates a very specific moment in New York’s history.
The hopeful song closes out the first act and features the main characters dining at a local restaurant. Their friend-turned-landlord Benny Coffin III, originally played by Taye Diggs, renounces the bohemian lifestyle that the others still practice. From there, the others sing about things that still bring them inspiration as struggling artists. These range from small enjoyments such as riding a bike past men in three-piece suits to renowned poets like Langston Hughes. The cast continue to share their own ways of resisting the norms before retreating to a brief interlude where couple Roger Davis (Adam Pascal) and Mimi Márquez (Daphne Rubin-Vega) reveal they are both HIV positive. After a tender moment, the celebration of bohemian life continues.
Larson’s musical came at an incredibly difficult time in New York’s history. When he wrote RENT, the city was deeply entrenched in the AIDS epidemic. Time and time again, vulnerable communities were left to die due to the stigma that came with the disease. The disease ran rampant through creative communities which greatly overlapped with the queer community. Larson made sure to highlight this fact in the musical.
At the same time, New York faced the last breath of the twentieth century’s bohemian movement. This movement originated in Greenwich Village and, as its name suggests, thrived off of groups of creatives who went against the grain of mainstream society. Like Larson mentions in the song, bohemians reframed their place outside of the mainstream to be “an us for once, instead of a them.” It was a community-centered movement that seemingly disappeared shortly with the rise of commercialization.
While Larson himself did not contract AIDS, he is one of many who lost numerous friends because of it. The White Plains native states, “Out of our close group of six, four of us were diagnosed with HIV, and three died of it.” He gracefully explores these more personal experiences with the disease in another one of his musicals, Tick, Tick… Boom!.
Being in such close proximity to AIDS certainly informed how Larson approached RENT. He reverently translated the horrors he witnessed into an evocative musical with complex characters. He also captured the moments of joy that carried New Yorkers through this otherwise tragic moment in time. “La Vie Bohème” is that joy in music form as young creatives dance on tables and shout out what keeps them going.
“La Vie Bohème” is a love letter to the New York creative spirit. In the face of tragedy, artists continue to find ways to create joy and liberation, not only for themselves, but for the community at large. The raw, human desire to not only survive but thrive in a world filled with art stands at its center. From the gritty self-starter mindset to the spirituality of Buddha, there is something strange yet beautiful for everyone in this song. Bohemianism is a strong thread between all of Larson’s works, but no song better connects to New York’s resilience than “La Vie Bohème.”
Thirty years on, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids will host a special anniversary production of RENT on Monday, October 26 at 8 PM. Click here to buy livestream tickets.
“La Vie Bohème” Lyrics
Dearly beloved we gather here to say our goodbyes
Here she lies
No one knew her worth
The late great daughter of Mother Earth
On these nights when we celebrate the birth
In that little town of Bethlehem
We raise our glass – you bet your ass to –
La vie Boheme
La vie Boheme
La vie Boheme
To days of inspiration
Playing hookey
Making something out of nothing (La vie Boheme)
The need to express-
To communicate (La vie Boheme)
To going against the grain
Going insane (La vie Boheme)
Going mad
(La vie Boheme)
To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension (La vie Boheme)
To starving for attention,
Hating convention
Hating pretension (La vie Boheme)
Not to mention of course,
Hating dear old Mom and Dad (La vie Boheme)
To riding your bike,
Midday past the three-piece suits
To fruits – to no absolutes-(La vie Boheme)
To Absolute – to choice-
To the Village Voice-(La vie Boheme)
To any passing fad
To being an us for once … instead of a them!!
La vie Boheme
La vie Boheme
Ahhemm
Hey Mister – she′s my sister
So that’s five miso soup, four seaweed salad
Three soy burger dinner, two tofu dog platter
And one pasta with meatless balls
Eww
It tastes the same
If you close your eyes
And thirteen orders of fries
Is that it here?
Wine and beer!
To hand-crafted beers
Made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildos, to curry vindaloo
To Huevos Rancheros and Maya Angelou
Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion
Creation, vacation
Mucho masturbation
Compassion, to fashion, to passion when it′s new
To Sontag
To Sondheim
To anything taboo
Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunnigham and Cage,
Lenny Bruce
Langston Hughes
To the stage
To Uta. To Buddha. Pablo Neruda, too.
Why Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow
To blow off Auntie Em
La vie Boheme
Sisters?
We’re close
Brothers!
Bisexuals, trisexuals, homo sapiens,
Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men,
Pee Wee Herman
German wine, turpetine, Gertrude Stein
Antoniotti, Bertolucci, Kurosawa
Carmina Burana
To apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstacy
Vaclav Havel – The Sex Pistols, 8BC
To no shame – never playing the Fame Game
To marijuana
To sodomy, it’s between God and me
To S & M
Waiter … Waiter … Waiter … Waiter!
La vie Bohem
AZT break
You?
Me. You?
Mimi
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