SOURCE: "The New Bohemians," in New Republic, Vol. 214, No. 17, April 22, 1996, pp. 29-31.

[Below, Brustein questions the popularity of Rent, disparaging Larson's lyrics and the production's use of rock music.]

The American theater chases after a new musical sensation with all the messianic fervor of a religious sect pursuing redemption. And when the composer/librettist dies the day before his show begins previews, we have all the conditions required for cultural myth-making—a martyred redeemer, a new gospel, hordes of passionate young believers and canonization by The New York Times, which devoted virtually all the theater columns of a recent Arts and Leisure section to Rent, the "rock opera for our time."

Jonathan Larson's premature death at the age of 35 from an aortic aneurysm was a misfortune from many points of view. He was a young man on the brink of a strong career who did not live to...