Without You Written & Performed by Anthony Rapp
Mirvish launched a series of new products as well as local products to complement its “big house” theatre products like War Horse and The Wizard of Oz. Without You is a beautiful example of a new production that showcases true stage work. The actor needs to draw on his/her experiences to create their characters and mimic real life on stage. What if stage and life collided?
In 1994 Anthony Rapp was working at a Starbucks in New York with dreams of singing on stage; Jonathan Larson was a young playwrite out to usher in a new era of theatre. An audition song of R.E.M’s “Losing my Religion” would bring them together as friends and colleagues. Anthony’s audition landed him the role of Mark Cohen in RENT both on Broadway and later reprising it in the motion picture.
Without You, Rapp’s one man show, centers around the development of RENT and the parallel emotional struggles in Rapp’s life. It’s akin to watching a movie within a movie. The actor Rapp begins to struggle with the character development of Mark who watches his friend slow fade away from AIDS, while in his own life Rapp watches his mother fade slowly from cancer. Ironically, the whole production is neatly encompassed in the most well-known song of RENT “Seasons of Love”. The song, often sung at funerals, fits the overarching theme of loving and creating greatness while you’re alive and celebrating the achievements of those who’ve passed.
Jonathan Larson died the night before the official opening of RENT, divesting the cast and bringing the emotions front and centre. Rapp weaves this into his stage performance, connecting the loss of Larson to the cast with his own loss of his mother and overall emotional journey of RENT. It seemed cathartic for both Rapp and the audience who were often wiping tears from their eyes as they related to their own love and loss.
It took Rapp a long time to deal with these parallel losses. His book Without You — A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical Rent came out a decade later and now the stage production inhabits the Panasonic theatre until January 6, 2013.
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