Where is
Urinetown? If you pay close attention to the nonsensical explanation sung by Officer Lockstock early in this ironic, tongue-in-cheek musical, you'll realize it's everywhere and nowhere, the sad reality of here and now and an intimidating fantasy. It's also an award-winning musical filled with amusing music, wry characters and solid entertainment. Pulling off
Urinetown isn't easy: It requires quick wit and an able cast that can convey self-conscious humor while singing and dancing as if there's no tomorrow. (The show offers a half-dozen obvious parodies of familiar musicals like
Les Mis and
Fiddler on the Roof.) Showbiz Players, a community theater group that picks and chooses its productions carefully, totally gets what
Urinetown is all about.
Telling the story of a metropolis with a water problem -- giving a monopolistic company (Urine Good Company, of course) the opportunity to wrest control of the city's pay toilets for their own profitable end -- this show finds humor in the oddest, least expected places. Officer Lockstock (Gary Rogers) and Little Sally (Ashley Bowman as a demented clone of Les Mis's Cosette) discuss what makes a good musical -- beware of "too much exposition," he tells her -- and songs extol "A Privilege to Pee," sung by Miss Pennywise (a savagely shrill Sherry McCamley), and ruthless behavior in "Don't Be the Bunny," performed by the gloating Caldwell B. Cladwell (Brian Benz, in a tour de force satire on corporate executives). There's a pair of stereotypical lovers, Hope and Bobby (Julie Wacksman and Zachary R. Huffman), whose soaring voices sing formulaic tunes like "Follow Your Heart," "Run Freedom Run" and "I See a River," hysterical because they are intentionally silly and predictable.
"This isn't a happy musical," Officer Lockstock tells Sally. "But the music's so happy," she says. "Yes, Little Sally. Yes, it is." The water in Urinetown might be drying up, but there's a bottomless reservoir of humor, and Showbiz Players has tapped into it. Grade: A
URINETOWN, presented by Showbiz Players, continues through Sunday at Xavier University's Gallagher Center Theatre.
