It was a watershed event. Pardon the pun, but when Urinetown first hit the Broadway stage in 2001, it, well, opened the theatrical floodgates for a host of others to subvert the musical theater form. Think Avenue Q or The Book of Mormon.
The wordplay-averse should be warned: It’s near impossible to resist it when addressing a work framed by bodily functions that are frequently dealt with euphemistically. And this may be my first — and likely last — foray into potty humor.
That being said, the show’s aim (as it were) is true. Leveraging what is arguably one of the least alluring aspects of humanity, Urinetown merrily moved the needle in the early 2000s by upending the tried-and-true-and-getting-oh-so-tired musical theater form.
In this case, it swapped out the razzle dazzle for dystopian drear, envisioning a water-short world in which a central-casting, greedy capitalist by the name of Cladwell makes hay from the very human need to go.
Naturally, that runs afoul of an earnest pair of star-crossed lovers; his daughter, Hope, and love-interest-turned-rabble-rouser Bobby Strong. As they fight the plumbing powers that be at Cladwell’s corporation, Urine Good Company, or UCG, audiences are treated to delirious ditties.
The show, which features music and lyrics by Mark Hollman and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis, made a splash. That’s not only due to its incisive, silly fun, but also because it is a Broadway buff’s bonanza of sly winks and goofy spoofs.
The score careers from one good-natured swipe to another. Privilege to Pee borrows boisterously from The Threepenny Opera. There is a folksy go at Fiddler on the Roof, complete with Russian kicks; a rallying; a flag-waving nod to Les Miserables and the number Snuff That Girl takes aim at West Side Story.
Queen Street Playhouse stages Urinetown
Whether or not you can pinpoint such sendups, you’ll get the drift, and like those of us the near-full crowd at the Queen Street Playhouse you may well lap it up. The credit for that goes to a talented cast directed deftly by Kyle Barnette. All are clearly reveling in the mirth, and training some accomplished vocal cords on all the grime and mayhem, too.
Sure, one or two didn’t quite nail some numbers, but when you have the always commanding Madelyn Knight belting it out and mugging it up as Mrs. Pennywise, you’re getting your money’s worth. As paramour Bobby Strong, Brandon Chinn more than holds his own vocally, as does Jessica Shamble as Hope Cladwell.
I always enjoy the high-pitched faux-innocence of Jenny Bettke when she’s gone little-girl, as she has done in other shows for Footlight and does here as Little Sally, and Cladwell, Jackson Clark Haywood was having good sport being a major jerk.
The Flowertown Players tackle Take Me Out
In a turn for the probing, the same week I also made my way to Flowertown Players for a play that is part of its Studio Spotlight Series. Richard Greenburg’s Take Me Out is an entirely different proposition than Urinetown, but one that levels a gaze on another American pastime: the game of baseball.
Directed by Michael Smallwood, the production slips into the FTP Black Box Studio housed in out-building behind the main theater. It made its Broadway debut in 2003, which led to a Tony Award for Best Play.
But unlike the spoof-worthy stock villains, ingenue and rogue’s gallery of Urinetown, these nuanced characters grappled with a whole mess of contemporary dynamics — race, privilege, sexuality — some playing out right on the baseball diamond.
Much of the plot powering the revelations hinges on a Black star player, Darren Lemming, performed masterfully and affectingly by Noah Anderson. When he publicly announces that he is gay, it unleashes all manner of reverberations in the locker room.
Homing in on the frequently fraught aspects of modern-day masculinity, the work features 11 male roles, many quite meaty. Some spoken in another language, Japanese or Spanish, and together span backgrounds — adding more complexity to the dynamics at play.
As Shane Mungitt, an uneducated pitcher who speaks publicly about his ire at his teammate’s sexuality, George Metropolis must navigate some of the more shameful impulses in American society — homophobia and racism — while contending with the character’s incapacity for expressing himself. A foil can be found in Lemming’s gay business partner, Mason Marzac, portrayed by Michael James Daly with self-deprecating humor, conveying how he has never been invited into this world of heterosexual masculinity.
As intellectual teammate Kippy Sunderstrom, Jay Sandix ably reveals the hazard of ascribing his own words to others. It is this character who breaks the fourth wall, teeing up to the audience that we’re about to take a turn for the Kafkaesque, as Greenberg hurls a curveball, like the high-velocity leather orb at the core of their chosen game (one I will not spoil).
With the stakes suddenly, unexpectedly high, each character must confront his own culpability.
Throughout, we consider that there is no level playing field where men can mine language to come together. Even, well, the playing field.
Yes, Urinetown and Take Me Out are two vastly different evenings of theater, albeit both breakthroughs in their own ways in the early 2000s. Locally, the scale and ability of the cast together offered a boost of encouragement for the Charleston theater scene to come.
Catch Urinetown at the Queen Street Playhouse until April 26 and Take Me Out at Flowertown Players until April 21. Maura Hogan is founder of Culture South. She can be reached at artsmaurahogan@gmail.com.
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