Travis Ross and Alexa Lopez in Rent [Danny Kaan]

JONATHAN Larson’s hit musical Rent, inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, opened off-Broadway 30 years ago. Tragically, Larson died aged 35, the night before its first preview.

Set in New York’s East Village in the late 1980s, the show follows a group of friends navigating poverty, addiction, love, creative ambition, and the Aids crisis, at a time when the virus was still a death sentence.

Aspiring filmmaker Mark (an amiable Gaten Matarazzo) and his musician friend Roger (Travis Ross) face eviction by their former roommate turned landlord Benny (Joaquin Pedro Valdes).

Roger is HIV positive and desperate to write one great song before he dies. He falls for Mimi (Alexa Lopez), an S&M dancer who is also living with the virus.

Other members of the local community include drag artist Angel (an agile Jeevan Braich), who becomes involved with Collins (a richly timbred Billy Nevers), a former philosophy professor and anarchist.

The community unites when Benny threatens to evict the homeless from a nearby lot so he can build a commercial studio.

Mark’s ex, performance artist Maureen (Lazy Violet), stages a protest with her new partner, lawyer Joanne (Danielle Fiamanya).

It’s a grim, gritty portrait of the era set to a cracking rock soundtrack. Luke Sheppard’s slick production seats part of the audience onstage, and Tom Jackson Greaves’s choreography heightens the immersive effect. David Woodhead’s clever design allows us to catch an occasional glimpse of the hard-working live band.

The cast give it their all, but the full-company numbers sometimes blur together, and it is the solos and duets, such as Angel and Collins’s I’ll Cover You, that resonate the most.

Until May 29
rentthemusical.com