Urinetown - awful title, great play

What do you get when you combine great acting and singing; energetic and inventive choreography; a live band; a love story; and a very funny musical? You get Timber Lake Playhouse and director Brad Lyon’s area premier of “Urinetown”.

What the movie “Airplane” did to spoof and parody movies is what “Urinetown” does to spoof and parody musicals. The moderator (played by Kyle Sandall) Officer Lockstock (he has a sidekick Barrel – Lockstock and Barrel) has a continuing conversation with Little Sally (Abby Haug) that reminds me of the movie "Airplane". Captain Oveur, played by Peter Grave, asks little Joey if he’s ever been in a cockpit before. (If you don’t know the rest of that line, rent the movie)

Even though this is a parody, the play has a plot that involves a 20 year drought and the industrialist of a small town (Mr. Cladwell played by Robert Maher) is capitalizing on the lack of water to make money off the poor by taxing their pee. “It’s a Privilege to Pee”, is one of the first songs performed by Penelope Pennywise (Hannah Jacobs) and the poor waiting for their morning pee in front of Public Amenity #9, the dirtiest bathroom in town. If they don’t use those amenities the police will take them to Urinetown and they are never seen again. Of course the peasants revolt when a fee hike is imposed and the ensuing play is a laugh a minute. In fact, my college kids laughed as hard as anyone.

If you are a regular TLP or play enthusiast keep your eyes open for references to other musicals and previous TLP productions. I caught a few familiar spoofs, but even if this is your first ever musical, you’ll still find it laugh-out-loud funny. Just watch the cast behind the main scene or you’ll miss some of the funniest shtick. I can’t help mentioning Ben Mason, who plays Mr. Queen, (another spoof) floating and prancing around gaily. It cracked me up. The entire cast was all so outstanding it’s hard to just mention a few performances for fear I’ll miss one.

If you loved “The Full Monty” or “Hair”, don’t miss this very funny parody. And if you’re enjoying the play don’t miss the intermission where the actors are selling t-shirts on the front porch. Arrive early and you might even see some of the characters mingling around.

Most musicals follow a certain music style throughout, but part of the parody is the changing styles from “West Side Story” like performance to one of the audience’s favorite performances of “Run Freedom Run”, a Gospel in the middle of the second act.

Explanation of the parody is on the right wall as you walk into the theater, check it out.

Hats off to the brilliance of director Brad Lyon, choreographer James Beaudry, and the TLP cast for taking a very funny musical and making it their own. They really showed how great live local theater can be. Don’t miss it! "Urinetown" runs through July 9th.

(by Barb Benson, theCity1.com)