Urinetown: The Musical evaluate – much less critical satire than gleeful homage powered by appeal and chops | Australian theatre

Urinetown, the 2001 three-time Tony award successful musical by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, is aware of it’s a tricky promote.

It’s an all-singing, all-dancing world the place a horrible drought has outlawed non-public bogs and a public well being act forbids public urination. A non-public firm operates the city’s solely public facilities, charging exorbitant charges for the privilege to do one’s enterprise. If the folks can’t pay to pee, they’re killed by the police, who name it “being despatched to Urinetown”. Residents don’t know their destiny in the event that they fail to conform, although we discover it out within the first scene.

Who’d need to see a musical about all of this, you would possibly ask. Don’t fear: in that first scene, Little Sally (Natasha Vickery) takes these inquiries to the present’s narrator, Officer Lockstock (Karen Vickery). Wouldn’t the present’s premise and subject material, or its unhealthy title, “kill a present fairly good”? Lockstock dodges the query, however the message is evident: this musical is in on the joke.

Half social and political commentary, Urinetown vaguely gestures at Brechtian theatre methods to amplify its exploration of corruption, company greed, revolution, and political paternalism (it borrows liberally from the form, construction and sound of Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and Orson Welles’ ardour venture, the neo-Brechtian play-with-songs The Cradle Will Rock). Lockstock and Little Sally regularly handle the viewers and the solid intentionally play the motion so broadly that the characters don’t really feel actual – we’re not presupposed to really feel for them. We’re supposed to stay exterior the story.

However don’t count on significant political critique, sharp socio-political satire, and even any depth to the methods they borrow from agitprop and epic theatre. Urinetown’s ebook (Kotis) and lyrics (Hollmann) regularly undermine its personal message as a result of it’s distracted by the present’s different function: commenting on, and parodying, musical theatre.

Urinetown’s coronary heart actually lies in riffing on traditional musical numbers and tropes, and on this manufacturing by Coronary heart Strings Theatre Co, which premiered in Canberra and is now enjoying at Sydney’s Hayes Theatre, director Ylaria Rogers and her crew play gleeful homage to the musical canon.

Every quantity nods to a unique present or recognisable sound, and Rogers harnesses them with a wink and nudge. The start of the revolution, in fact, feels like Les Misérables. Speak of rabble-rousing violence erupts right into a music constructed on the DNA of West Facet Story (and Cameron Mitchell’s choreography is at its most delightfully referential right here).

There’s additionally a gospel quantity, a classical love duet, and extra musical references than will match into this evaluate. There’s even a confrontation within the act one finale during which the “good guys” evade seize as a result of, as Lockstock factors out, the cops are choreographed working too slowly to achieve them.

In brief, this can be a musical that by no means lets us neglect we’re watching a musical, which is each to the present’s profit and likewise its detriment: its jokes aren’t all the time humorous, and infrequently a response is carried out so broadly it escapes Rogers’ personal robust comedic directorial framework – and there’s no emotional funding within the characters to melt the clunkers once they thud. Plus, its politics are frustratingly blithe given its clear makes an attempt to observe within the footsteps of extra rigorous work.

However when this manufacturing embraces being a musical itself, the band taking over their devices and the solid lifting their voices in music, there’s an actual trace of magic.

Urinetown’s rating is extra attention-grabbing as a set of references than as songs in their very own proper, however beneath the musical route of Matthew Reid (following Leisa Eager’s work on the Canberra season) every music appears to barrel out throughout the stage and wash over the solid, choosing them up and holding them aloft. The sound design, beneath the technical supervision of Derek Walker, offers a startling readability and brightness to every quantity, elevating them into one thing surprisingly pure.

The solid are in glorious type, and Rogers steers them fearlessly by the world of the present. Joel Horwood, because the face of the revolution Bobby Robust, makes use of their beautiful vocal tone and dedication to the bit in equal measure to hold the plot. They’re well-matched by Petronella Van Tienen as ingenue Hope, Bobby’s love curiosity and the daughter of Mr Cladwell (Max Gambale), the person chargeable for these outrageous amenity charges.

Vickery and Vickery (a enjoyable mother-daughter double act), in addition to the remainder of the ensemble (Deanna Farnell, Barbra Toparis, Joe Dinn, Benoit Vari, Artemis Alfonzetti, Tom Kelly and Dani Caruso) are simply as invested in creating stunning sounds and broad comedy.

It’s a aid that the solid and firm are all-in on the large swings and jokes, each once they work and once they don’t, and there’s a way of actual neighborhood onstage. The present itself may be extra bit than mind, and the songs may be powered by appeal and chops greater than lyrical brilliance, however the firm and its inventive crew are thrilling. What would they do with higher materials? We’d be fortunate to search out out.