By JAMES D. WATTS JR. Scene Writer on Sep 17, 2011, at 9:25 PM Updated on 9/17 at 9:25 PM
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Maybe they should have called a plumber.
Because Theatre Tulsa’s production of “Urinetown,” a musical about people having to pay to use a toilet, doesn’t quite…well…flow the way it should.
Yes, Friday’s opening night performance at the Tulsa PAC had its share of the mishaps that routine plague the first time a show is presented before a paying audience, like lines of dialogue or lyrics of songs that evaporated from an actor’s memory the second before they are to be pronounced, or sound effects that trail a few seconds after the action they were supposed to highlight.
But these things happen all the time in community theater productions – one almost expects them.
What is troubling about Theatre Tulsa’s “Urinetown” is, in essence, a matter of plumbing. The installation instructions were followed well, the materials used were of decent to good quality, and no parts were left over when all was finally assembled.
But the connections weren’t well sealed, so that what poured out onto the Doenges Theatre stage wasn’t a headlong rush of satiric musical comedy but a slow trickle of songs and speeches with the occasional laugh.
“Urinetown” is set sometime in the future, when a two-decade-long drought has made water the most precious commodity, to the point that private toilets have been outlawed. The only relief is to be had at Public Amenities, where one must pony up a pocketful of cash to make use of the facilities.
Anyone who dares take a dump in the ditch or a whiz against a wall is certain to be arrested and carted off to a place called “Urinetown,” from which no one ever returns.
A young fellow named Bobby Strong (Derick Snow) is a low-level worker in Urine Good Company, the corporation that controls everything liquid, and is reasonably happy with his lot in life. Until, that is, his father engages in a stream of treasonous tinkling and is promptly bustled away to his fate.
Then Bobby happens to meet, and fall instantly for, a fetching young lady named Hope (Samantha Woodruff), who inspires him to “follow his heart.” That, and the announcement that Urine Good Company is raising the price of admission to its public lavatories, is enough to transform young Bobby from worker drone to song-and-dance revolutionary.
Bobby urges the downtrodden mass of humanity standing with their legs tightly crossed outside Public Amenity No. 9 to rebel along with him. They kidnap Hope, who is the daughter of Urine Good Company’s chairman Caldwell B. Cladwell (James Christjohn), and scamper off to a secret hideout.
How it all turns out … well, as the show’s narrator, police Officer Lockstock (John Orsulak), keeps telling the wisecracking-beyond-her-years Little Sally (Sloopy McCoy), “this isn’t a happy musical.”
That’s because writer Greg Kotis and composer Mark Hollmann conceived of “Urinetown” as a satire of the musical genre, with “Les Miserables” as is its primary target. It takes a lot of jabs at everything from uplifting stories to the sort of cliff-hangers that end a lot of first acts.
Hollmann’s music mixes all sorts of influences from Broadway-style ballads to old-fashioned gospel shouting, and in many instances the ensemble singing is very good.
Snow perfectly embodies the wide-eyed naïve optimism of the hero of a musical – he even looks like he just stepped out of an Andy Hardy movie – but you wish his singing is better. Many of the triumphant high notes his character has to sing is simply beyond him.
Woodruff matches him well as the very good girl who thinks the best of everyone. Christjohn is an excellent villain as Cladwell, so smooth and unctuous you’d think he was coated in STP.
Paul Henry as the corrupt Senator Fipp, Leah Thomas as Bobby’s boss Miss Pennywell, Nick Perez as a bloodthirty revolutionary are good in their one-dimensional roles.
But the pieces of the show don’t quite come together as they should. Satire usually works best when the performers act as if they aren’t in on the joke, and the cast of “Urinetown” is all too aware of the effect their words and actions are supposed to have. It’s one thing to break the fourth wall in the theater, it’s another thing altogether to keeping winking at the crowd every chance they get.
Perhaps, with a little extra work, director Cathy Gervasio will tighten up more of the connections within this production, so that all the comic energy that this show should have doesn’t leak out before it reaches the audience.
“Urinetown” continues with performances 2 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22-24 at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St. For tickets: 918-596-7111.
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