A beautiful review of RENT's closing night

[Peter Staley]

Written by my favorite (and openly gay) theatre critic, Charles Isherwood, from the NY Times, this homage to RENT is much more than that -- it's about remembering what it was like living and dying from HIV/AIDS in the '80s:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/theater/21ishe.html

On the way home from the theater I remained under the spell of the musical’s powerful evocation of a time that is not very distant chronologically but seems eons ago spiritually. “How did we get through it?” I found myself asking, recalling the years of grim statistics and rumored advances in treatment that didn’t pan out, the burdensome sadness, the fear and sense of futility as yet more news came about the illness of a friend or acquaintance or luminary.

Instantly I caught myself. How did we get through it? Too many of us didn’t.

[newt]

This reminds me of an old friend, Don Melia, we met at the wrong time perhaps, or maybe is was a just meeting. Seems a long time ago, and  beears remembering that decade, but not too often. But remembering nonetheless - matt