Urinetown: The Musical is hard to resist

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      Book and lyrics by Greg Kotis. Music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann. Directed by Donna Spencer. A Firehall Arts Centre production. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Wednesday, November 5. Continues until November 29

      This production isn’t golden. It’s more of a mid yellow, but still strong enough to recommend.

      The musical itself is excellent. In Urinetown, we’re post–environmental collapse, and water is so strictly rationed that people have to pay to piss—and flush. Their coins go to greedy capitalist Caldwell B. Cladwell, who runs Urine Good Company, which operates the city’s latrines. When Cladwell raises the pee fee, the poor revolt, under the leadership of Bobby Strong. Complicating factor: Bobby’s in love with Cladwell’s daughter, Hope.

      Urinetown doesn’t stop at satirizing big business and corrupt politicians; it also has a fabulous time sending up the conventions of musical theatre. Near the top of the show, Little Sally is eager to set things up for the audience, but Officer Lockstock stops her: “You’re too young to understand it now, but too much exposition can ruin a show.” And when the rebels kidnap Hope and threaten to kill her, their big number, “Snuff That Girl”, is choreographed (excellently, by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, in this case) with all the jazzy finger-snapping glee of West Side Story.

      There are fantastic things about this Firehall production of Urinetown, but the show is inconsistent. Anton Lipovetsky plays Bobby and you couldn’t ask for a funnier, more stylistically bang-on job of acting. When Bobby’s dear old dad gets dragged off to Urinetown (is it prison? Where is it, exactly?), Lipovetsky’s Bobby says, “Oh, Pa, what’s to become of you?” with gut-wrenching sincerity—and wicked comic spin. If only Lipovetsky were as bang-on as a singer: when he tries to harmonize with Michelle Bardach’s Hope, it ain’t always pretty. For her part, Bardach is a strong vocalist, but seems to have almost zero sense of Urinetown’s ironic style.

      Using a squeezed, street-urchin voice, Tracey Power is perfect as Little Sally. Like Power, the golden-throated David Adams, who plays Lockstock, is also a musical theatre pro and it shows.

      Andrew Wheeler plays Cladwell and Meghan Gardiner is Penelope Pennywise, who runs a toilet in the poor part of town. Both do strong work, although neither is as inspired or out-there as Jay Brazeau and Barbara Barsky were in the same parts when the Firehall originally mounted Urinetown in 2006.

      Director Donna Spencer must be held responsible for the number of lame bits of business that made it all the way to opening night. None of those goofy handshakes or finger-snapping references to Rio should have survived the rehearsal room.

      Still, there are many times when this Urinetown is hard to resist: when Shane Snow, who plays a rebel named Hot Blades Harry, jackknifes his knee Jets-style—again and again and again—when “Run, Freedom, Run!” takes the stuffing out of gospel music while sounding terrific, and when the wave of voices under the musical direction of Steve Charles knocks you over in “We’re Not Sorry”.

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