Vacationland Theater Company's riotous opener
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | August 20, 2008
MAGNIFICENT VOICES: Vacationland's cast. |
| Urinetown, the Musical | by Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis | Directed by Hunter F. Roberts | Produced by the Vacationland Theater Company, in Sanford | through August 31 | 866.584.0770 |
War and drought, terrorism and tsunamis: our bad news is often good business for a variety of private industries, including munitions, military protection, and emergency evacuation services. It’s not that much of a stretch from here to the dystopian future of Urinetown, the Musical: Some years back, overpopulation and environmental catastrophe brought what the play’s older folks call “the stink years," marked by poverty, social chaos, and lots of raw sewage. Only by the collusion of corporate profiteering and governmental regulation has all that been brought under control. But naturally it comes at the cost of certain liberties: The law says everybody must pay to pee. The wickedly dark, clever, and all-deprecating satire Urinetown receives a sonorous production by the newly formed Vacationland Theater Company, in Sanford, directed by Hunter F. Roberts.In Urinetown’s future, the proles obediently line up and count their change, desperate for entrance into one of the private urinals owned by the villainous capitalist Caldwell B. Cladwell (James Magedman). But when poor Old Man Strong (George N. Perkins) takes an illegal leak in the alley and is shipped off to the feared “Urinetown,” his son Bobby (Bryan Welnicki) turns revolutionary. Bobby also happens to have fallen in love with Cladwell’s beautiful daughter, Hope (Courtney Basset). She reciprocates, and inclines to bright-eyed liberal social ideals herself, but is also loath to turn against her dad. Conflicts ensue. Extremely catchy songs are sung. And a number of theatrical conventions are sent up, as our fourth-wall-breaking meta-narrator, Officer Lockstock (Roberts) discusses the play’s plot line with the precocious street urchin Little Sally (Mariah Perry).
The family-run Vacationland, founded this year, bills itself as “primarily a professional and rep theater,” and for this show its founders have indeed brought to Maine a plethora of talented and polished performers. Joined with a small selection of local favorites (notably the venerable Leo Lunser), this cast is flush with magnificent voices. Vacationland’s production does great credit to Urinetown’s fine and varied score, and its actors revel in the epic minor harmonics, tricky cadences, and genres as diverse as hot jazz and gospel. As the star-crossed leads, Welnicki and Basset are pitch perfect, nimble, and radiant (and I’d love to know the source of Basset’s excellent ingénue-chic little dresses), while Magedman’s Caldwell is a decadent villain (especially in the black-comic “Don’t Be the Bunny”).
Treats abound in the supporting roles, too. I’m particularly enamored of Perry’s impish Little Sally: With a high-pitched cartoon voice, a twitchy, elastic physical presence, and lots of white in her eyes, she’s like something out of Ed Gorey or Wes Craven — endearing, curiously disturbing, and impossible to look away from.
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Topics:
Theater
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, Entertainment, Performing Arts, Musicals, Theater, Wes Craven, Caldwell Cladwell, Greg Kotis, Mark Hollman, URINETOWN, THE MUSICAL, Less
