STREAMING
REVIEWS BY IAN HORNER Ben Platt as Evan Hansen.
You cease being a writer who waits tables and become a waiter with a hobby.
TICK, TICK… BOOM! (Netflix)
A
ndrew Garfield, a great LGBTQIA+ ally, is brilliant as the young playwright, Jonathan Larson, waiting tables in New York City while trying everything in the book to get his first musical produced. It’s 1990 and HIV/AIDS is advancing stealthily across the city and the President denies it even exists. The world’s about to end for young Larson, he fears, because he’s just turned 30: “You reach a certain age where you cease being a writer who waits tables and become a waiter with a hobby.” That sort of writing ultimately led him to change theatre history by writing the musical Rent. Tragically, this burgeoning talent was cut down way too soon. Larson died at 35 of a heart condition just before Rent opened on Broadway and subsequently ran for 12 years. This story of his first musical is simply stunning. It’s energetic, introspective, ebullient and exhausting, but so worth it. The number Come To Your Senses is just awesome. For the duration of the film, Garfield sucks you into his vortex, 26 DNA
Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson.
defying you not to barrack for Larson, who’s fighting his own demons, nonbelieving producers, and the clock. So far, he’s spent eight years writing a show that’s never gonna happen and he’s already over the hill. Sondheim, he points out, was 27 when he had his first show on Broadway. The lines keep coming: “Having a workshop showcase for my musical is like having a colonoscopy in Times Square.” All the while he’s facing career doom, his world is being ravaged by AIDS: “Half my friends are dying; the other half are afraid of it.” But it’s not bleak. Somehow this talented young man’s amazing spirit cuts through the blackness around him. Irony, for him, was more a way of life than just a theatrical convention. Why should we try to be our best when we can just get by? It’s beautifully directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose sense of rhythm (in text, editing, blocking, camerawork and score) has never shone better. And that’s saying something. Great support cast, too, like Judith Light as his agent and Pose’s MJ Rodriguez. The real Larson appears during the end credits. (PG-13, 115 mins)
Garfield and Bernadette Peters as Sunday Legend.
Robin De Jesus as Michael, MJ Rodriguez as Carolyn and Ben Levi Ross as Freddy.
