"WITHOUT YOU" DE ANTHONY RAPP (2006)

Este libro llegó a mis manos el año pasado, cuando decidí hacerme con varias cosas de RENT en Amazon. Está escrito por Anthony Rapp, uno de los protagonistas del elenco original del musical y de la película.

Empecé a leerlo con un poco de reparo porque no soy muy fan de las biografías... y ha resultado ser mucho mejor de lo que esperaba.

Rapp escribe bien, con sencillez y mucho sentimiento. Cuando hablaba de la muerte de Jonathan Larsson, autor de Rent, lloré como nunca había llorado con un libro.

También habla de sus amores, su familia, la enfermedad y pérdida de su madre, lo que el musical ha supuesto para él... Aunque tengo que reconocer que la parte que más me ha gustado es, obviamente, en la que habla de Rent XD.

"In 1994 this was still a revolutionary idea -that it was possible to live a full life in the face of AIDS or cancer, that being ill didn't mean being dead. Jonathan proclaming that in a musical, in a song that was all about celebrating life on the fringes, was unprecedented in my experience. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to express all of this myself; I couldn't wait to be in the rehearsal room with the rest of the cast and revel in the shouting out of those words"

""Everybody," Jonathan began, his tone mild-mannered and respectful, "I'm very happy that Cy agreed to come here today. It was important to me that you all would get a chance to meet her and hear what she had to say. I don't know how much you know about Friends In Deed, but they're an amazing organization. When my friends Gordon and Pam and Matt all became HIV-positive, they asked me to go to meeting at Friends In Deed with them, and I did, and it really helped us all deal with everything. I just responded to how they viewed life and death and illness and all of it. And so it's really informed what I've written. I wrote the Life Support scene as an attempt to capture what goes on at Friends In Deed"

(...) "Well," Cy began, "at Friends, we come from the point of view that, in life, there are no accidents. It's all okay. There is nothing really ever wrong. Everything in life is exactly the way that it should be, very simple because that's the way it is. There is no other way that it can be." She paused, letting us mull these ideas over to ourselves"

"After I said good night to Sarah, I glanced over to see if I could finally get a chance to talk to Jonathan, but he wasn't there. There was so much I'd been saving up to tell him on this night, so many thanks I'd wanted to give him: for jump-starting my career; for giving me the chance to sing onstage again; for asking me back after the studio production; for expanding my role so fully in the past year; for writing me new songs to sing with my voice in mind; for sharing his process with me; for entrusting me with the role of narrator; for writing a musical that featured such richly developed queer characters; for writing a show that was so incredibly fulfilling to perform, and so moving for its audiences; and, most important, for becoming both my new, supportive friend and a true, enthusiastic collaborator"

"As I wandered up and down the aisles, unsure of what I wanted, just certain that something would bring me some comfort, I slowly realized that the music piping in through the store's tinny stereo sounded naggingly familiar. I opened my ears to it, and it was then that I heard Michael Stipe and R.E.M. chiming their way through "Losing my religion", and even though I wasn't sure whether I believed in ghosts or spirits or messages form the Great Beyond, I found myself standing perfectly still in the middle of that deli, closing my eyes, letting the song wash over me, feeling that Jonathan was somehow there. He had to be; this song was several years old, and it wasn't played on the radio anymore, so what was the likelihood that at that exact moment I would just happen to hear it? Maybe it was Jonathan's way of saying hello, I thought, maybe it was his way of saying that he was there, that he was okay, that he was at peace. But even as I thought all of this, I realized I was reaching desperately for something to hold on to, something that might make sense out of a senseless situation. But whatever the truth of the matter was, hearing that song in that deli in that moment made me feel almost blessed"

""Oh god oh god oh god oh god," I said. I looked down at my hands, which were shaking uncontrollably and filthy. I was beginning to hyperventilate. I couldn't look at any of the faces of the people who were in that alleyway, all of the people who had witnessed what I had just done, and there was nowhere to go, there was no escape. I moved to the fire escape that was tucked in the corner of the alley, and as I raced up the clanging metal steps I heard Jesse call my name, but I couldn't look at him, I couldn't respond, and I was sobbing now, really sobbing, terrified of what I'd just done, the full weight of it crashing down, sure that I would never see Todd again, I may as well have killed hum, and no, not another loss like this, not another one, no no no no no, how had I fucked everything up so much, how had I done this, how had I lost control of myself? I had completely lost control, I was not there, I was gone, somewhere else -what had I done, what had I become, how did that happen?- and I paced back and forth on the landing of the fire escape, horrified at the prospect of ever heading down and facing my friends and colleagues and whoever else had witnessed my insanity"

"The roughest moment, as usual, was the reprise of "I'll cover you" and as we sang we all struggled to hold ourselves together. Todd had secured a seat in the front row, and when I joined the line at the edge of the stage, I glanced down, and he flashed his familiar "I love you" sign to me, and I raised my voice and sang with all of my friends. I sang for Jesse and Idina and Daphne and Jonathan and Ben Wackerman and, especially, I sang for my mother. I sang for all of them with my friends in this show that had transformed my life so fully and irrevocably. I sang my whole heart out"