On ‘Rent’ and the Meaning of Love

Responding to Alice J. Glasser’s letter (“Nature of Love Is Her Objection to ‘Rent,’ ” Counterpunch, Oct. 27), I would like to comment that nowhere in “Rent” does it imply that love is viewed as a fleeting, one-day-at-a-time feeling. Rather, I saw it as people down on their luck, struggling to succeed in a difficult world and desperately hanging on to hope of something better to come.

Love can be found wherever people really care and have compassion for each other. I suggest that Glasser be not quite so dogmatic and critical of people with HIV and AIDS until she has walked a mile in their shoes. Finally, I find her definition of the transmission of AIDS very narrow-minded and odious.

CORAL NORTON

Oxnard

In answer to Alice J. Glasser’s question as to what my perception of “love” is, I must answer that my perception differs from hers largely in that it is much less “clinical.”

Love involves passion, desire, caring, sharing, commonality of purpose and, above all, respect. Because Mimi is first seen as a drug addict doesn’t mean she is not a person or human in need of love. And the fact that she is HIV-positive doesn’t exclude her from receiving love, especially from someone who is similarly infected.

The thrust of “Rent” is that these are individuals coming to terms with “living with, not dying from, disease” and coming to terms with the knowledge that they are going to die, and how do they make their time left on this Earth meaningful and worthwhile? The answer is love. And it’s that sense of the word “love” that I choose to believe in.

Life is too short and too precious to shut down and close off. “Rent” is about finding that place in yourself and finding yourself a place in living life to experience why you are here in the first place. To love.

ROBERT SPRAYBERRY

Musical director, “Rent”

(Editor’s note: Sprayberry is the author of “Prescription Results From an Under-Dose of ‘Rent,’ ” which appeared in Counterpunch on Oct. 20 as a response to Alice J. Glasser’s Oct. 13 Counterpunch article, “A Doctor Writes New Prescription for Musical ‘Rent’ ”).