Theater Review: URINETOWN (Lyric Stage Boston)

MIND YOUR PEES AND QUEUES

Courtney O’Connor’s masterful direction of the unpleasantly titled Urinetown: The Musical brings together numerous wonderful performances along with great music (Dan Rodriguez, music director) and choreography (Christopher Shin) in this Brechtian examination of economic inequality and environmental degradation. With music and lyrics by Mark Hollman and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis, Urinetown includes references to numerous Broadway musicals, most notably Les Miserables with a slow-mo march of the rebellious populace brandishing a banner of toilet paper strips.

The wryly sardonic Anthony Pires, Jr. is a terrific Officer Lockstock, a role that also functions as a narrator who directly addresses the audience and sets the stage for us, explaining that Urinetown: the Musical (as opposed to Urinetown, the mythical location) places us in dystopian future in which a twenty-year drought had led to such severe water shortages that the population must pay to pee. Any violation of this requirement (peeing in bushes, jars, or any other place besides the privately managed public facilities) can result in exile to Urinetown, the place. Caldwell B. Cladwell (impressively rendered and beautifully sung by Christopher Chew) has succeeded in exploiting this situation. He owns and profits from all the public facilities and is in the process of increasing his rates by bribing Senator Fipp (Remo Airaldi).

When Old Man Strong (also Airaldi) is arrested for public urination, his son Bobby (Kenny Lee) is initially helpless. Over time, however, Bobby finds the courage to organize a resistance movement. Even in this ensemble of many wonderful performances, Lee (still a student in Boston Conservatory’s Musical Theatre BFA program) stands out for his charisma and stage presence. Every gesture and line is delivered perfectly. He is the “star” of the show, but his performance is more than ably supported by not only the previously mentioned Chew and Pires, Jr., but by a number of others, most notably by Elliana Karris (Hope Cladwell), Paige O’Connor (Little Sally), and Lisa Yuen (Penelope Pennywise), who is especially notable for hitting and holding those high notes in “It’s A Privilege to Pee.”

Urinetown: The Musical places us in a dystopia in which a heroic young couple lead a movement to liberate the people from an oppressive capitalist system. It’s a musical, and of course we expect a happy or at least an inspiring, ending, but Kotis takes the Brechtian route and gives us instead a realistic ending, one in which the “good guys” seem to win’”but lack the wisdom and information required to secure their victory.

The Lyric is marking its 50^th Anniversary with this season, and has been on a roll with successful productions that break the fourth wall, including The Drowsy Chaperone and Assassins. The company prides itself in drawing exclusively from professional talent local to the Boston area and brings many Eliot Norton Award winners to its stage. Urinetown: The Musical is a wonderful start to their anniversary season.