Urinetown

[firstfrost]

Urinetown is still a really good musical. It's the season opener for the Lyric Stage, so that's a much smaller venue than whatever the Theater District theater we saw it in before. Before going in, I wasn't at all sure how it would scale, but it turns out it wasn't nearly as different as I expected. The singers were all quite strong unmiked, the dancing was impressive. Both the Globe and the Phoenix liked the women better than the men, but I liked pretty much all of the leads. (Tsk. The Phoenix review calls the company the "You're In Good Hands Company" and it's the "Urine Good Company". It's Urinetown, not You're In Town...) I'm a little torn about the Lyric "regulars"; seeing Miss Pennywise as another Marilyn Zschau part, or thinking "Hey, that's the Strom torch singer!" for Old Man Strong, I find a little contrary to being fully immersed in the play. On the other hand, I guess they want to be Brechtian, so anti-immersion is part of the goal. Hmm.