| "This is a musical?" (Urinetown)
I had the pleasure of attending Otterbein's production of Urinetown last night, and I want to say kudos to the entire production team and cast. I can't remember the last time I saw a musical that resonated with me on so many levels.
Since my daughter is OC Class of '10, we paid particular attention to the MT '10ers, most of whom my daughter knows (although since she tends to be a quiet observer, she doubts they know her!). Many of the class were in the ensemble, and we were both extremely impressed. (CCers would "know" some of them...MTAussie's son, Abparent's son, "Linus", and Kegosnell.) It's not often you come away feeling you know something about the onstage personalities of each individual in the ensemble, but we definitely had that feeling. Although some of this can be attributed to the way the ensemble roles are written in Urinetown, most of it came from the complete embodiment of their roles by each student. They were always "on" (but never took it so far as to detract from the action of the principals).
I can now fully understand why Urinetown is such a popular production on college campuses. It's truly one of the densest musicals I've seen in ages; there are so many layers that I would need to see it again and again to fully digest everything that was happening (my lucky daughter...she intends to see it at least one more time if student rush tickets are still available). My daughter and I went out to dinner after the play, and our food grew cold because we spent so much time talking about experience. We compared the homage-to-other-musicals that we caught (and the ones we think were homages, but we couldn't place the play), the political implications of capitalism vs idealism and revolution, and I even learned a bit about music from my daughter when she explained why Senator Fipp's loonnggg note was so incredibly impressive (my daughter is rarely awe-struck but she got almost breathless when she explained the actor had straight-toned the note).
I'm not sure the people in the seats near us know what to make of our reactions though...we happened to be in a row populated by a very "polite" group. When the Les Mis homage occurred, my daughter and I were giggling, then guffawing...and when MTAussie's son started waving the red flag of revolution, we were laughing to the point of choking. At the intermission, the woman next to my daughter asked, "What did I miss there?"
It truly was an impressive production, and I'm so glad I made the long drive to attend with my daughter. DrJohn...your students did good! | 
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