BWW Reviews: URINETOWN Concludes Theatre Harrisburg Main Season

Some musicals reek of sophistication and good taste. An example? THE KING AND I, or the bulk of MY FAIR LADY. But what, speaking of the latter, if Alfred Doolittle rather than Henry Higgins were a social arbiter? What if the French mob, rather than Sir Percy, were the center of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL? And what if Nicely Nicely (speaking of the mob) were more central than the Salvation Army in GUYS AND DOLLS? Your musical might lack sophistication. It might lack good taste. It might, to be blunt, reek. And it might have pee jokes. Because if your barricades were to be erected not by unsatisfied, disenfranchised wealthy French college students but by a mob of poor people whose major goal is to go to the bathroom right now, you'd have not LES MISERABLES but its intentional spoof, URINETOWN.

Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis's modern instant classic first showed up at the New York International Fringe Festival and then on Off-Broadway in 2001, but it didn't stay there long. Instead, it moved to Broadway in 2004, and with the likes of Hunter Foster and John Cullum in the cast (and James Barbour as one of the replacement actors during cast changes), it was immediately embraced by audiences who were not afraid to take on the subject of the evil of pay toilets. It's since been embraced by Hugh Jackman and Jonathan Groff, among others, prepared to play the assistant urinal custodian and unintentional revolutionary, Bobby Strong. It's now been embraced by Theatre Harrisburg as well, sounding the call for liberation from corporate control of the most private areas of our lives and the equal call for the freedom to put those private areas and plenty of bathroom humor on stage.

Director Thomas Hostetter, Artistic Director Emeritus, is back from his vacation as Man In Chair in THE DROWSY CHAPERONE to assemble a cast and crew to tell the tale of drought, despair, and pay toilets. In a not so distant future, after twenty years of drought, Caldwell B. Cladwell (Joe Gargiulo) and his UGC - the Urine Good Company - have a monopoly on bathroom use in the dark, unnamed city, and all the toilets are pay-only. Police spend their time capturing lawbreakers who choose alternative methods of... relief... and send them outside the city to Urinetown, from which no one has ever emerged. Officers Lockstock (Gregg Robert Mauroni) and Barrel (Bill McCarthy) are the primary enforcers who report to the evil Cladwell, whose corporation effectively controls all government functions as well as bathroom ones after years of bribery and payoffs of police and government officials.

That URINETOWN was nominated for a host of Tonys and captured Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical in 2002 will surprise no one who listens to the music or pays attention to the lyrics - or to the politics. This is a show that has produced some surprisingly fine numbers - "Run, Freedom, Run!" is a modern gospel-tinged classic, while "I See A River" is equally impressive as an anthem. But it's "It's a Privilege to Pee" and "Don't Be The Bunny" that put the comedy element in this musical at the same time as being absolutely chilling, rather like listening to SWEENEY TODD with a crazed sense of humor in the lyrics. Additionally, the dark humor of Officer Lockstock, the narrator/interlocutor, and of his sidekick/nemesis, the urchin Little Sally (Theatre Harrisburg veteran Elizabeth Colpo, clearly enjoying herself), and the UGC employees offset the evils of Cladwell (Gargiulo has clearly studied at the feet of Snidely Whiplash himself to learn comic evil), the grim determination of Bobby Strong (George H. Diehl as the Marius of pay toilets), and the frighteningly cheerful optimism of the aptly named Hope Cladwell (Theatre Harrisburg and Harrisburg Singers veteran Sarah Pugh) to remind us that a lack of a happy ending doesn't mean that you're not watching a comedy.

URINETOWN is a surprising combination of spoof (not only of LES MISERABLES and BIG RIVER but of other musicals as well -- be alert for some Bob Fosse lampooning), Brecht's epic theatre and fourth-wall dissolution, Kurt Weill's political theatre, and almost anything else that can be stirred into the soup. By the time you've begun absorbing everything that's happening and found the song that you'll hum on the way out, you'll almost stop noticing that the show is a very literal collection (it is the plot, after all) of bathroom jokes - because yes, there really was a plot.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the play to those who don't know it is that it's one of the most solid books of recent years - the Tony win for the book was not for nothing. If you're unfamiliar with the show, this is worth your time - and then a purchase of the Broadway cast album, because you will want to hear the music again.

Theatre Harrisburg at Whitaker Center (the restrooms there are indeed free) through June 16. Call 717-214-ARTS or visit theatreharrisburg.com for tickets.

Photo Credit: Jadrian Klinger

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