Rent

Mark, who is an aspiring film maker, provides the framework for the musical by filming the group members’ lives as an unscripted documentary. Mark is also the self-appointed narrator and the only character who repeatedly steps out of the story to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. Mark utilizes his role as storyteller to distance himself emotionally from the narrative. He is the only main character with no current romantic entanglements, aside from tension arising from his history with Maureen, who cheated and left him for Joanne. Mark provides the dominant point of view, and he is the protagonist; his action of making the documentary drives and shapes the narrative. Mark’s primary objectives are to make his art and support his chosen family without selling out. He also lapses into passiveness after New Year’s, when he is no longer fighting eviction, and his friends sequester themselves in their relationships. Mark recognizes that he is different from his closest friends, because he isn’t living with a fatal diagnosis. He takes on the necessary role of the one bearing witness to the ephemerality of his friends’ lives and youth.