Urinetown wants it all. This anti-musical musical wants to skewer the foibles of the genre like so much shish kebab but also wants to indulge in every frivolous entertainment advantage to milk applause. Shameless.
But effective. Urinetown: The Musical, being given a good ol’ college try by URI Theatre (through March 4), certainly is a crowd-pleasing knee-slapper. Just so you don’t think too often about what you’re laughing about. This show has more hey-wait-a-minute moments that screech enthusiasm to a halt than a Republican National Convention.
Brash and irreverent. That’s the ticket. Keep your appreciation on that level, and the juvenile bathroom humor will be forgiven. The production’s poster signals that: a roll of toilet paper is being held out to several frantic, uplifted hands.
Written in 1999, the Obie and Tony award-winning book is by Greg Kotis, music by Mark Hollmann, and lyrics by both. The URI production is directed and choreographed by Paula McGlasson, with musical direction by Lila Kane.
The setup is simple but, uh, complex. The setting is a dystopian, post-Stink Years society in which a powerful corporation, Urine Good Company, has obtained a monopoly on access, for a fee, to public toilets. A long-term water shortage (overuse, drought — take your pick) resulted in private bathrooms being banned, you see. The police are quick to collar anybody sneaking off to the bushes to relieve themselves, and filling bottles in the privacy of your home also risks detection. (Don’t ask how — you’re supposed to be having fun, not squirming in your seat.)
Don’t worry. Our hero and heroine will set things right in the final act or die trying. (Don’t automatically rule the latter out. Deconstruct the musical form and all the pieces won’t necessarily fit back together again.)
Bobby Strong (Donald J. Dallaire) is one of the Poor, as the ensemble is known, although Bobby also works for the UGC as an assistant custodian of one of the public “amenities,” as the toilet facilities are known. He is driven to rebel when his father is disappeared (exiled? executed?) for giving up and relieving himself against a wall when he can’t pay to pee legally. His love interest is aptly named Hope (Stephanie Sherman) and is the perky, optimistic, and well-dressed daughter of the head of UGC, Caldwell B. Cladwell (Joseph Kidawski). Dallaire and Sherman are in exceptionally good voice as they warble through their duets, a considerable accomplishment with one’s tongue in one’s cheek.
The names of some of the songs capture the sardonic tone of the show as well as the lyrics themselves. Corporate minion Penelope Pennywise, played with feisty authority by Haley Hanson, takes the coins of the poor as she sings “It’s a Privilege to Pee.” Kidawski, in mascara-pencil mustache and spats, is hilariously mean as Mr. Cladwell. He gives an appalled Hope a life lesson with “Don’t Be the Bunny” (as in: be on the survivor’s end of the shotgun). The equally murderous impulses of the downtrodden get vented in “Snuff That Girl,” as poor little rich Hope, gagged and dangling a noose, has trouble finding her happy place. Bobby motivates the throng with “Run, Freedom, Run!,” one of the production numbers that are done especially rousingly by the company.
