Since its debut in 2001, Urinetown has earned a well-earned reputation for its send-up of musical theater conventions and its cockeyed take on heavier subjects like environmental deprivation, corporate greed, and the widening gap between the haves and the have notes. Writer/co-lyricist Greg Kotis and co-lyricist/composer Mark Hollmann’s meta approach to the format, with a corrupt cop (Greg Hildreth) and his urchin-girl sidekick (Pearl Scarlett Gold) serving as over-explaining narrators, anticipate a wide range of similarly self-referential shows like Spamalot, [title of show], and Something Rotten.
But Urinetown has stood out from those later shows, both because of its pitch-black humor about the human condition (more than one sympathetic character dies before the final curtain) and because its musical inspiration is well outside the Broadway mainstream: Hollmann’s score and the show’s sensibility owe a great deal to the socially conscious work of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, artists whose work is more typically taught and admired than widely performed these days, aside perhaps for the cabaret standard “Mack the Knife.”
While rooted in the Brechtian tradition, the new production of Urinetown that opened this week at New York City Center as part of the Encores! series retains a trenchant freshness. Indeed, there are plenty of elements of the show that make it seem like it could have been written this year: the depletion of natural resources like water, the corruption of politicians in bed with corporate interests, the use of law enforcement to back them up, the reticence of the working class to question authority or stand up to their oppressors. Keala Settle, who plays a functionary for the evil Urine Good Company, even gets a big early laugh for an all-too-timely reference while defending a system that charges everyone an ever-climbing fee to use the public-only toilets: “Don’t you think I have taxes and tariffs and pay-offs to meet too?!” she exclaims. “No one’s getting anywhere for free!”
Settle, outfitted by costumer Sophia Choi in teal and bright pink, delivers a powerhouse vocal performance with some soaring, operatic runs during her early solo, “It’s a Privilege to Pee.” She’s well-matched by a cast that includes sweet-voiced Jordan Fisher as her deputy-turned-revolutionary, Bobby Strong, and the delightful Stephanie Styles as his unlikely love interest, Hope, a nepo baby torn between her newfound crush and her loyalty to her father, Urine Good Company head honcho, Caldwell B. Cladwell (Rainn Wilson). Styles is a hoot, particularly when the rebels kidnap her and she spends much of the second act performing while gagged and bound to a wheeled office chair — still over-emoting and contributing hilarious high kicks during big production numbers. (The clever choreography is by Mayte Natalio.)
Director Teddy Bergman keeps the action moving, particularly in the fleeter-footed second act — which is blessed with some of the strongest, most dance-heavy musical numbers. In the gospel-tinged “Run, Freedom, Run,” Jordan leads with the fervor of a revival-tent preacher, even capping the song with a laying on of hands that sends an ensemble member collapsing into the arms of those behind him.
And yet, some of the initial surprises of the show — the daffy premise, the meta commentary, the social consciousness — no longer have quite the same effect a quarter century later. More jarringly, Bergman repeatedly directs his cast to play scenes in a broad, almost throwback-sitcom style that undercuts the seriousness of the message. His approach may be necessary given the vast size of the 2,270-seat New York City Center — a big difference from the Off Broadway venue where the show debuted before a two-year Broadway run at the decrepit, soon-to-be-flattened 640-seat Henry Miller’s Theatre. The Encores! production underscores how this material may work better in a more intimate, scruffier setting that’s truer to its working-class hero’s story than a gilded auditorium with a long list of corporate and philanthropic underwriters. (That said, kudos to the team who outfitted City Center’s restrooms with themed “graffiti” elements on the stalls and mirrors, reminding theatergoers how fortunate we are there’s no surcharge for bathroom usage.) ★★★☆☆
URINETOWN
Encores! at New York City Center, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (1 intermission)
Tickets on sale through February 16 (tickets: $45 to $185)
Culture Sauce 