Urinetown: The Musical

I love musicals and my husband tolerates them, so I’m judicious about what I take him to. I’d seen Urinetown: the Musical on Broadway ten years ago and I knew it was funny and had a plot, so we got tickets to the student production at Nazareth College (it runs this coming weekend as well).  We’d been to other performances in the Arts Center – Garth Fagan Dance, Rochester City Ballet – but this was our first student show.  As we were entering, it occurred to me that we had become – wait for it – townies!!! 

Comedy needs an audience, and unfortunately, the theatre was not even a quarter full.  It was great to see mostly young people, though, since they are the ones who must be cultivated as future audiences for professional theatre productions (to supplement the current grey haired crowd…). The students did a really nice job, and seemed very well cast.  The microphones were a bit buzzy (what happened to productions that relied on vocal projection rather than technology?), but otherwise it was extremely enjoyable.

The musical satirizes everything from politics and economics to musical theatre itself, and one of my favorite songs from the show is called “Don’t Be the Bunny.” The show is very witty – it was co-written by Greg Kotis, whose All Your Questions Answered recently ran at Geva.  The similarities were eerie, but Urinetown benefits from the addition of music as well as a collaborator.  One of my favorite bits of dialog comes when one of the characters exclaims, “Ms. Cladwell, what an unexpected surprise!” and she innocently replies, “Is there any other kind?” (It reminded me of my sister’s admonishment not to qualify “unique” with “somewhat” or “very” – it’s either unique or it’s not…) The other is between Officer Lockstock (and once he’s introduced, you just know it’s only a matter a of time before an Officer Barrel appears) and Little Sally, where he explains that “nothing can kill a show like too much exposition” and she asks about “bad subject matter….Or a bad title, even?  That could kill a show pretty good.”  The title might be a little off-putting, but seriously, how can you not love a show that ends with the line:  “Hail Malthus!”