LA REVIEW: When You Gotta Go - Urinetown is the Perfect Place to Pee - I Mean Be...

Urinetown – the Musical, opened Tuesday in its Los Angeles Premiere at the Wilshire Theatre. As one of the characters, Little Sally, in the musical reminds us, it is an "awful title" with a "plot so absurd…" But what she doesn't mention, and instead lets the entire cast show you, is that Urinetown – The Musical  is one of the best shows to emerge from Broadway in the last decade.

The story itself, wickedly subversive, takes place in a time of a horrible drought – so terrible, in fact, that all private restrooms have been banned, forcing people to "pay for the privilege to pee." You see, all public restrooms are owned by one entity, the Urine Good Company, which collects a fee each time you have to urinate or defecate to, one, help conserve water, and two, to help find a long-term solution to the water shortage. Problem is, 20 years of collecting fees has gotten the town nowhere, and now the company wants to hike fees even higher. But don't even think about jumping into the bushes or relieving yourself in a jar – these are all punishable offenses, with the sentence being a one-way ticket to 'Urinetown,' a place no one knows much about other than they are to be frightened of it (oh, and that no one ever comes back from the place!)

 

This is too much for Bobby Strong, a Urine Good Company employee, who has watched his own father hauled off to 'Urinetown' for peeing in public when he didn't have enough money to use the legal facilities. So he begins a groundswell movement amongst the poorest inhabitants of the town to take back the toilets and let people pee for free!

Like little Sally says, "a plot so absurd," but the results are an incredible evening of witty music and lyrics and laugh out loud antics that sent the opening night audience into an uproar of applause at the end of the show unseen in Los Angeles (a city notorious for people leaving before the curtain call to avoid parking lot gridlock).

 

If I were to get serious for a moment, the funny thing is that the story is not so absurd, when you take into account the past decades conglomerations and emergence of super-corporations. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Clear Channel and the like, have begun to dictate taste and morality, by wielding incredible buying power with the ability to make or break a supplier. Such actions by these corporations have begun to limit the choices of the consumer, as they dictate what magazines can and can not be displayed based on content they alone find object, or by blacklisting a particular group from the radio stations they own if said group says something objectionable against the current government with which they curry favor. So in some ways, Urinetown – The Musical is a Swiftian tale of what can happen when the power of the people is usurped by a corporation who's only real motive is profit, and not the wellbeing of the community in which it exists.

 

Worth mentioning – but hey let's get back to the fun…

 

The cast, every single member, is so strong, it is almost unfair to single anyone out. This cast is perhaps the best touring cast of any musical I have ever seen. From Jeff McCarthy's (from the original Broadway Cast) want to be loved narrator who insists on making every movement he makes a true "showbiz moment" (hilarious), to Frank Holmes, a member of the ensemble who has a bit of stage business at the end of Act One that is so brilliant, I keep laughing about it days after seeing the show, every single solitary member of the company gives a jaw-dropping performance, and seems to love and relish every single moment they are on stage. And it shows.

 

Charlie Pollock, also deserves highlighting, for his portrayal of Bobby Strong. His revolutionary zeal in his attempt to take back the toilets is so funny, it recalls the talented Will Forte of Saturday Night Live impersonating George W. Bush. And his acting ain't the half of it – this boy has pipes that send every song his sings soaring.

The same can be said for the amazing, Christiane Noll, who also delivers a knockout performance as Hope Caldwell, the naïve young daughter of the corporate baron who unsuspecting falls for the revolutionary leader. Her performance is spot on, and reminds me of the brilliant job Faith Prince brought to the role of 'Adelaide,' for which she won a Tony, in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls.

 

Every aspect of the show is top notch; the direction, choreography, set and costume design, and if there were a single flaw in the show, it would have to be the sound design (which could easily be chalked up to being the first night in a new theatre), which sometimes led to some unintelligible lyrics.

However, nothing can stop this cast and this show from putting on an evening of musical theatre that raises the roof and sends the audience into the warm Los Angeles evening with a huge smile on its face. And in the end, even little Sally is proven wrong, Urinetown - The Musical isn't an awful title, for the show itself uplifts the title and makes it something to be proud of.

 

NOW PLAYING through May 23, 2004 at the Wilshire Theatre in Los Angeles, 8440 Wilshire Blvd. (at La Cienega). Tickets range in price from $42 – 67 (a bargain if you ask me), with performances Tuesday – Friday @ 8:00pm, Saturdays @ 2:00pm & 8:00pm, and Sundays @ 1:00pm and 6:30pm. (There will be no Sunday Evening Performance on May 23^rd). Tickets are available at all TicketMaster outlets, on-line at http://www.ticketmaster.com/, or by phone at 213-365-3500.

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