Well, you know, it has gay stuff in it. Like references to committed same sex-couples, but also to AIDS and bad words. Even though there's something called a "School Edition" of the 1995 rock musical extravaganza about AIDS-riddled bohemes (gay, straight, trans, whatevs) living and dying in the East Village, which cuts out some language and the sex song "Contact," people in places as diverse as Orange County, Texas, and West Virginia are objecting. Principals have canceled productions, incorrectly citing things like "prostitution" as their reasons. (There is no prostitution in the show).

Theater teachers and supporters of the show are upset with what they feel is a bias against homosexuals. The director at Corona del Mar High School, in Newport Beach, said that he undertook the show because he'd seen a rise in homophobic language on the school's campus. But the principal shut him down and remains tight lipped about the whole gay thing.

So where should we fall down on this? Outrage over gay suppression and backwards thinking and all that ("We're a bit back in the woods here," said a West Virginia principal who stopped her school's version)? Or should we just sigh and resign ourselves to the fact that even shows as relatively tame as Rent will still rankle in big, lopsided America? Well, as I said to a friend earlier, high schools wouldn't do Buried Child or Oleanna or even Angels in America. Nor should they. It's just an age and experience thing. But, as she argued back, kids should see Rent if it'll pry open their eyes a bit. So when do they get that opportunity, if not at their school?

Ultimately I think it's a case by case basis. Some poor decisions will be made, some brave and convicted ones will be too. It's the good/bad nature of theatre that, unlike movies, everyone can tackle a piece, and make it their own issuey, bad production if they want to. While the she show's composer Jonathan Larson and his producers and cast may not have found the show scandalous fourteen long years ago, some sweater-vested principal might find his own school's version to be Last Tango in Paris: For Kids. We have to take that good and take that bad and just be glad, I guess, that the debate and controversy and silliness can exist at all. I mean, at least they're fighting over a show that was once seen as something of a polemic, right? It's not like we get arguments about really tame shows anymore!

Oh, wait.

I first saw Rent when I was 13 years old, at the Shubert theater in Boston. It was the first touring company, and they ended up doing a heavily extended six month run. I saw it five times with various combinations of friends. I saw it twice more when it returned in 2000 (17 years old, a little more cynical), sleeping overnight in front of the theater for $20 first or second row rush seats. So I was familiar, in a very distinct sense and muscle memory way, with the junk pile of a set that looms on stage when you walk in, that giddy feeling you have knowing that it will soon be warmed and lit up. I was soaking wet from the hurricane or tropical storm or whatever that passed through, and felt appropriately bedraggled in the Nederlander, which was completely overhauled, and yet distressed, when the show came in. I got a tiny and expensive little glass of red wine and asked the bartender what was coming in next. "Guys and Dolls," he said grumpily.

A standing ovation greeted the cast as they walked out on stage at the top of the show. When they launched into the first salvo of sing-speaking and then the barnstormer song, "Rent," it was both pleasantly familiar and also a little off. The cast seemed a bit tired, as did the seats and the walls and even that trusty junky set. Or maybe it was just me, now maybe feeling too wet and too cold to really enjoy anything. Plus I was alone and still drinking the sad little wine and maybe feeling older and a little less bedazzled by these colorful young people's hyperbolic emotions. The performances were all fine, though some folks were a bit miscast. Mimi was a beautiful singer but too operatic for the scratchy, desperate role. Roger was even more melodramatic than usual, and Mark even more detached and forgettable. Eden Espinosa (from Wicked and that unfortunate Bklyn: The Musical) played a fun, chipper, kinda wholesome Maureen and Tracie Thoms, from the ughhhh movie version, was a strong and sexy Joanne. A couple of the original chorus members were back, which was fun to see but also a little...depressing.

Things picked up as the first act zipped along (faster than I remembered), "Another Day" and "Christmas Bells" particular highlights. And then came the rainy and smoky intermission and the cast walking out in a line to sing "Seasons of Love," met by another standing ovation (getting tired from standing) and the death-filled, downer tumble of the second act ("Without You" was still lovely, if oversung). By the time the reliably stirring finale was belted, I admit I was won over all over again—if not by this particular cast and slightly wrong tempo and definite datedness of the material, certainly by the old, bittersweet, inclusive spirit of the show, still alive in the audience of, I'm guessing, mostly longtime devotees. Though my seatmates were newbies.

I met Debbie, a woman who had seen the movie and loved its soundtrack. When her husband passed away two years ago, she took comfort in the soundtrack's (yes a bit hokey by now, but still something good and hopeful) message of survival and rememberance and weathering all things as best as one can. She said she loved the show and was very glad she'd finally stopped procrastinating and bought the ticket. To my right were Lily and TJ, two precocious 13-year-olds (the cirrrcle of liiiife). Both devoted theatre fans (I believe they said they'd seen Gypsy, which is sorta heavy stuff for their age, no?), TJ had seen Rent on stage before, while Lily had only seen the film. She said they were "obsessed" with the soundtrack. Throughout the show she rocked back and forth, sat as far forward in her seat as she could, and occasionally grabbed TJ and whispered something to him. She seemed rapt and enamored, and I felt briefly jealous that I couldn't enjoy the thing for the first time again. But I was glad that she could.

After the long (and blessedly final) standing ovation, I turned to ask the kids' what their final impressions were. But they'd already disappeared into the crush of people cramming their way out of the theater. In some ways I was glad I didn't get to ask them. If they'd said something not so good I think I would have been crushed. I prefer to assume they loved it as I did when I was 13 and feeling revolutionary. And though I had maybe seen something not that good that night, I was still happy I'd made the effort one last time. The show will live on for years and years in tours and awkward, wobbly college productions, but here (and at the New York Theatre Workshop downtown) was where it had first bloomed and flourished. 12 years of "today," now ceding, finally, to tomorrow.

There are all of my old friends (Jesse! Anthony! Daphne!) offering new insights, making me remember what was so exciting and different and defining about the show in the first place. I think I'll mourn its passing after all. The possibility of just going and getting a cheap ticket for the hell of it is slipping away. And, though certainly meriting some scrutiny, it was important. As Anthony Rapp (Mark) says of the show: "It validated the idealistic part of me." And that, in these times of snark and brittle insincerity, is certainly saying something. [EW] Below, find a grainy, glorious video of the original cast at the 1996 (!) Tony's.