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Have been listening to the original Broadway-Cast recording of this current hit musical, which was a strong contender for these past Tonys.
I report here that had I been exposed to this music, and this story, a year earlier, I would have supported the show for Best Dramatic Presentation in both Hugo and Nebula races.
I'm dead serious.
And, yes, it's great stuff. Despite the title, which turns off a lot of people. You have to look at it this way: a show with that title, about fascism and pay toilets, that nevertheless emerges as a major hit, has to be EXTRA good.
Here's the concept. New York City has suffered a ruinous drought that has brought its reservoirs to dangerous lows. The drought, still continuing after two decades, has led to conservation measures of a tragically draconian bent: namely, nobody's allowed to have their own bathroom facilities. The
entire structure of society has been replumbed, forcing the populace to endure a urination tax collected at pay toilets throughout the metropolis. Attempts to circumvent the tax by peeing in alleys or hoarding mason jars are prosecuted with extreme prejudice, with all offenders facing exile to
the dreaded, much-feared Urinetown.
In practice, this is nothing more than just another way to, you should only excuse the expression, dump on the poor, who have less access to facilities and less financial resources to afford them. The conservative power elite stays on top by branding anybody who opposes this policy a dangerous subversive, and voting in more and more law enforcement to crush all dissent.
Until one man rises, with talk of revolution...
Okay, so it's silly. And yes, there are plenty of references to peeing in the lyrics. But it's also a splendid political cartoon, depicting how external threats (like this show's disastrous drought) are used as excuses for brutal internal repression, and further enrichment of society's haves by scapegoating of the have-nots. It's MAD magazine, all right, but, dammit, it's also Kafka and Orwell and in many ways LES MISERABLES. I am absolutely not exaggerating when I say that I see elements of this show (which was first performed Off-Broadway more than a year ago, and which experienced such unexpected word of mouth that it moved uptown), too relevant for comfort in the world after 9/11. Funny as it is, sophomoric as it is, it's also sophisticated, smart, and angry.
As for the music, it is wonderful -- clever and heartfelt, with genuine sweep and a satiric bite that never ventures too far into the realm of the self-mocking. The songs are as good as anything in, let's say, THE PRODUCERS, and they carry the story so well that it's easy to follow from the soundtrack album alone. (There are strong echoes of LES MISERABLES in the hero's call to urinary revolt -- and yes, I'm as astounded to actually mean that sentence as you probably are to read it.) I wanted to see this show before, but I'm even more desperate to see it now. Probably won't ever get the chance, alas; most of my play-going friends react to the very concept of this show with as much instinctive revulsion as the show itself predicts in its first song (which talks a little about how bad titles and unsavory subject matter can be death at the box office, ha-ha.) But it shouldn't be written off that blithely. A quick listen to the soundtrack album, and you will be sold.
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