Welcome to Falsettoland: Rent and Falsettos as Resistance through their Contributions to the

Collective Memory of the AIDS Epidemic

By Rio Schneider
 Schneider 1

Though most people may not have dived into the full anthology of classic works of musical

theater, it is hard to not recognize the first five chords of “Seasons of Love” from Rent, Jonathan

Larson’s rock opera based on Puccini’s La Bohème. Rent very quickly became culturally renowned, but

why? What makes pieces like it so timeless? In the AIDS epidemic, musicals and pieces of art,

including Rent and Falsettos, were created as a response to the disease. The sexually transmitted

acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) emerged in the early 1980s, and deeply impacted

America's gay community––it reinforced prior beliefs that gay people were inherently diseased.1

During the AIDS epidemic in New York, Rent opened in 1994, the show revolving around a group

of starving artists. The characters struggle with grief, addiction, identity, disease, relationships, and

finding community in a time of isolation.2 On Broadway, Rent shortly became critically acclaimed,

winning both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Awards’ Best Musical. Falsettos is a fully

sung through musical that opened in 1992 on Broadway, written by William Finn and James Lapine.

It takes place in New York City in the early 1980s, at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. The plot

revolves around a unique and somewhat dysfunctional family; Jason is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah

as his parents separate and his family structure changes dramatically. His father, Marvin, pursues an

affair with Whizzer, who eventually dies of AIDS. This family, that grows as the show continues,

struggles through planning a Bar Mitzvah, understanding familial relationships, grief, both Jewish

identity and sexuality, and accepting death as it comes.3 These shows and their portrayals of

AIDS-related deaths matter because they brought communities together and contributed to the

collective memory of AIDS through portraying victims not as statistics or sinners, but as real people

trying to live full lives. They brought audiences together––both literally and figuratively––to

understand the struggles of the gay community during the AIDS epidemic and encourage support
1
Richard Anderson et al., “The Triumph of the Right,” edited by Richard Anderson and William J. Schultz, in
The American Yawp, edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), accessed
May 8, 2024, https://www.americanyawp.com/text/23-the-great-depression/.
2
Jonathan Larson, RENT, New York: 1993.
3
William Finn, Falsettos, New York: 1992.
 Schneider 2

rather than exclusion. This was a form of group resistance against the diminishing and exclusion of

the gay community due to fear of AIDS. To mitigate the exclusion of the gay community from

society in the AIDS epidemic, both Rent and Falsettos portrayed victims as real people, in order to

humanize them in the eyes of audience members.

These musicals were an example of only one form of AIDS activism––most fights were for

the increase of funds devoted to research and cure development. The government, more specifically

the conservative Reagan administration, did not pay significant attention to the issue of AIDS. This

brought liberal politicians to believe that the only reason the homosexual community didn’t get as

much governmental and medical support was because of their identity.4 The indifference brought

activists to take a stand, and experts advocated for millions of dollars to be allocated to cure

development. The majority of AIDS-related activism was made up of grassroots organizations, for

example, ACT UP. ACT UP used demonstrations in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience to

focus government attention on AIDS-related issues.5 These forms of activism cared for the

AIDS-impacted population as a whole, but related to the physical side of the disease rather than

spreading messages of hope, as the musicals did. Both forms of activism are important in their own

rights, as one side keeps them physically healthy and the other brings them together as a community

and provides hope in a time of darkness.

Rent and Falsettos portrayed strong and positive queer relationships for audience members to

relate to or feel invested in. This allowed for audiences to humanize AIDS victims and understand

that they are people too. The emerging stigmatization against the gay community caused for a

4
Richard Anderson et al., “The Triumph of the Right,” edited by Richard Anderson and William J. Schultz, in
The American Yawp, edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), accessed
May 8, 2024, https://www.americanyawp.com/text/23-the-great-depression/.
5
Richard Parker, “Grassroots Activism, Civil Society Mobilization, and the Politics of the Global HIV/AIDS
Epidemic,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 17, 2 (2011): 21-37, JSTOR, accessed 5/23/24,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24590789?searchText=AIDS+activism&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQu
ery%3DAIDS%2Bactivism%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default
%3A157e5ecd4474ba52a8ecd2ce658cd0a0&seq=5.
 Schneider 3

“pocket” of queer people to form and a building of smaller niche communities. The “distress of

being shunned” at workplaces and public spheres by the American majority caused those with AIDS

to hide themselves and their illness out of fear of exclusion and discrimination.6 This caused groups

of people with AIDS to come together in niche groups and communities. In Rent, Tom Collins, a gay

computer genius, teacher, and anarchist, meets Angel, a drag queen and street percussionist, after

being mugged. The two AIDS-infected Rent characters quickly click and find their love for one

another. They sing the song “I’ll Cover You,” where they discuss how they are each others’ “new

lease on life.”7 It implies their acknowledgement of their impending deaths, and they found new life

in each other. Their love throughout the show is an example of a valid and strong queer relationship.

In Falsettos, Marvin, a gay New Yorker who divorced his wife and left his son, Jason, pursued a love

affair with his friend, Whizzer. In the first act, which takes place in the late 1970s, Marvin and

Whizzer’s relationship is tumultuous and full of fights. They get back together, stronger than ever,

before Whizzer gets sick. As Whizzer is dying, he and Marvin console each other by saying “there’s

nothing to fear” and saying “I love you” for the first time in their relationship.8 Their love and

support for each other stays through Whizzer’s illness, demonstrating the strength of their

relationship. The strength of the two gay couples in Rent and Falsettos encourage audience members

to see the validity and humanity of gay relationships in a time where they were discriminated against

and thought of as inherently diseased.

Another way Larson humanized Angel was through the artistic portrayals of her death. In

both portrayals, the creators show the dying characters not as just victims, but as the people they

were before getting AIDS. In Rent, Johnathan Larson portrayed Angel’s death in a “sensual

life-and-death dance, while a group of actors gather around a table centerstage to speak words of

6
Powel Kazanjian, “The AIDS Pandemic in Historic Perspective,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences, 69, no. 3 (2014): 351-82, JSTOR, accessed May 16, 2024, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24631705.
7
Jonathan Larson, RENT, New York: 1993.
8
William Finn, Falsettos, New York: 1992.
 Schneider 4

passion, which punctuates the dancing.”9 Angel emerges, in white, from a white sheet, singing and

dancing through a repetition of musical motifs used in her past songs. We see Angel as who she was

through most of the show; unapologetically herself, passionate, and energetic. The audience

remembers her as just that rather than as a victim. Whizzer’s death is portrayed similarly; in his and

Marvin’s duet “What Would I Do,” after Marvin begins to sing about what he would do had he

never been with Whizzer, Whizzer reenters, dressed as he was at the start of the show.10 They sing a

final verse and Whizzer disappears. William Finn presented this so the last time we see Whizzer, we

see him not as someone dying on a hospital bed, but as the vibrant personality he was for the rest of

the show, before AIDS took over his life. The two portrayals of the deaths were especially important

because, as John Clum, Professor Emeritus of Theater Studies at Duke University, wrote,

“disappearance is often what the character with AIDS wants, an escape from being seen with the

visible signs of the disease, a horror especially for men for whom appearance has been crucial.”11

The ability to see the victims for who they were rather than dying victims is something that can only

really be seen through art. Through Rent and Falsettos, we see the AIDS victims not as ghosts of

people, disappearing, but as strong humans who feel the same emotions and live the same as anyone

else. For audiences to see these transformations live, every night, brought people together and

contributed to the collective memory as a representation of living with AIDS.

Along with staging heart-wrenching deaths of fan-favorite characters, Rent and Falsettos

portrayed mechanisms for coping with death, acceptance, and messages of hope for a community

more significantly experiencing suicidal tendencies. A study at Penn State College of Medicine

indicates that people living with AIDS are “more likely to have suicidal thoughts and die from
9
Jonathan Larson, RENT, New York: 1993.
10
William Finn, Falsettos, New York: 1992.
11
Alex Bádue, “Performing Gender, Sexuality, and Jewishness in the songs of William Finn’s musical
Falsettoland (1990),” Studies in American Jewish Literature, 38, 2 (2019): 159-178. JSTOR, accessed May 20, 2024,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerjewilite.38.2.0159?searchText=Falsettos&searchUri=%2Faction%2Fdo
BasicSearch%3FQuery%3DFalsettos%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastl
y-default%3A2c87833bed23eb00794d8abe89d6f173&seq=9.
 Schneider 5

suicide than members of the general population,” 70% of which were those who identified as

queer.12 The heightened rates of suicide and suicidal ideation were and are all the more reason for

messages of hope: theater created in the AIDS crisis was created not just to humanize victims, but to

bring hope at a dark time. Johnathan Larson, when creating Rent, kept this message in mind. He

recited what a friend with AIDS once told him: “It’s not how many years you live, but it’s how you

fulfill the time you spend here. That’s sort of the point of the show.”13 In the final song of Rent,

“Finale B,” the full cast ends on stage and watches the film of their years as friends, made by Mark,

the main character who is a filmmaker struggling to find direction and inspiration. Angel re-enters

before the final line, and the friends celebrate their time together rather than dwelling on grief and

death at the end of the show. The show finishes strong with the message “no day but today,” a

message that what is done in the moment, the friends made and moments had, are what actually

matter.14 “No day but today” became an emblematic symbol of the AIDS crisis.

Falsettos also ends its show with messages of acceptance of reality and overcoming adversity.

We see Whizzer’s acknowledgement of his imminent death in the song “You Gotta Die Sometime.”15

The song’s material and presence is extremely purposeful, as Alex Badué, a professor of Music and

Musicology focused in Musical Theater at Hamilton College, described. He wrote that Whizzer’s

song dramatizes his death, but “not without dignity,” and it “reveals his self-identity as the gay body

with AIDS when he admits that although he was never the one to give in or lose in games, now he

has to.”16 Whizzer acknowledges his upcoming death through accepting his identity, even though he
12
Zachary Sweger, “People Living with HIV/AIDS Have a Significantly Higher Risk of Suicide,” Penn State
University, accessed May 27, 2024,
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/people-living-hiv-aids-have-significantly-higher-risk-suicide/.
13
Anthony Tommasini. "A Composer's Death Echoes in His Musical: 'Rent,’" New York Times (1923-),
February 11, 1996,
https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/composers-death-echoes-his-musical/docview/109601269/se-2.
14
Jonathan Larson, RENT, New York: 1993.
15
William Finn, Falsettos, New York: 1992.
16
Alex Bádue, “Performing Gender, Sexuality, and Jewishness in the songs of William Finn’s musical
Falsettoland (1990),” Studies in American Jewish Literature, 38, 2 (2019): 159-178. JSTOR, accessed May 20, 2024,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerjewilite.38.2.0159?searchText=Falsettos&searchUri=%2Faction%2Fdo
BasicSearch%3FQuery%3DFalsettos%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastl
 Schneider 6

deems it unfair that he is punished for how he loves another. The last interaction between Whizzer

and Marvin, in “What Would I Do,” also demonstrates messages of acceptance of identity and

actions. The two contemplate whether or not they regret the relationship, and then decide that they

would relive it, including its consequences, over and over again: “All your life you wanted

men…/Who knew it could end your life?/I left my kid and left my wife/…do you regret––?/I’d do

it again./I’d like to believe that I’d do it again.”17 Their acceptance of their own identities and the

trajectory of their relationship serves as a moment of reflection and acceptance that many couples

impacted by death or AIDS don’t get to experience face to face, as art can bend reality and time

while real life does not work that way. Finally, the last song in the show is Mendel’s reprise of the

first song: “Falsettoland.” He sings, as the rest of the leading cast mourns the death of Whizzer:

“Lovers come and lovers go/lovers live and die fortissimo/this is where we take a stand/welcome to

falsettoland.”18 The idea of “falsettoland,” comes from the musical term “falsetto,” which is when a

male singer goes outside of his range. Falsettoland is a place where people live outside of the usual

range, or, the norm, the idea of lovers living and dying fortissimo means that they live their lives to

the fullest and aren’t diminished. Finn uses these musical terms to demonstrate, as Larson did with

“No Day But Today,” to demonstrate the importance of living life to the fullest, no matter how

strange or unusual the circumstances may be.

Rent and Falsettos served as resistance against the exclusion of the gay community due to

AIDS-related stigma through contributing positive representations of gay, AIDS-infected people to

the general collective memory of the era of the disease. These musicals brought dignity to millions

of victims, specifically through their portrayals of both the characters and deaths of Angel and

Whizzer. The two musicals are so popular and renowned because they provided hope for millions of

y-default%3A2c87833bed23eb00794d8abe89d6f173&seq=9.
17
William Finn, Falsettos, New York: 1992.
18
Ibid.
 Schneider 7

people. Rent and Falsettos are a testament to the power of live art and performance, specifically

musical theater. Both are representative of how, if any person has an idea and can successfully utilize

the magical properties of the stage, incredible stories can be told and people can be brought

together.
 Schneider 8

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Stanford University Press, 2018). Accessed May 8, 2024.
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/23-the-great-depression/.

Bádue, Alex. “Performing Gender, Sexuality, and Jewishness in the songs of William Finn’s musical
Falsettoland (1990).” Studies in American Jewish Literature. 38, 2 (2019): 159-178. JSTOR.
Accessed May 20, 2024.
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/24631705.

Larson, Johnathan. RENT. New York: 1993.

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HIV/AIDS Epidemic.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 17, 2 (2011): 21-37. JSTOR.
Accessed 5/23/24.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24590789?searchText=AIDS+activism&searchUri=%2Factio
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State University. Accessed May 27, 2024.
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/people-living-hiv-aids-have-significantly-higher-
risk-suicide/.

Tommasini, Anthony. "A Composer's Death Echoes in His Musical: 'Rent.’" New York Times (1923-).
February 11, 1996.
https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/composers-death-echoes-his-musical/do
cview/109601269/se-2.