| re: URINETOWN Last Night | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 02:47 pm EST 02/09/25 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 02:41 pm EST 02/09/25 | |
| In reply to: URINETOWN Last Night - sergius 07:38 am EST 02/09/25 | |
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| I was there last night as well. Keala Settle was out, and her understudy Tiffany Mann was good; however, she took the Audra "Gypsy" route and sang her high notes in head voice, which was a disappointment when I recall how thrillingly high Nancy Opal sang them in a full belt during the original. I guess Mann's understudy as Soupy was on last night, though didn't hear who it was because audience was talking a bit around me when Settle's absence was announced. Rainn Wilson was fun and game with an adequate enough singing voice, but didn't have the authority or the gorgeous singing voice of John Cullum in the original, especially missing during the "Don't Be the Bunny" number. Jordan Fisher was good, with a fine vocal top (and who needs to be reminded to add some heft and core to his middle voice because it's not consistent) though I still recall Hunter Foster's take on the role, and wonder why he never became a star from his fine performance. Also, his Run, Freedom, Run" is practically a direct steal of Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse's "Gonna Build a Mountain" from "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off". Little Sally works much better when it's played by a sardonic, comedic grown-up actress able to come across as younger, rather than the professional, but not really effective work of the actual minor child who was cast. Spencer Kayden was brilliant in the original, and later stood out (with a 2nd Tony nomination) for "Don't Dress for Dinner", an excellent farceuse who deserved to be cast more often, but wasn't. As to who really stood out -- Stephanie Styles as Hope Cladwell and Greg Hildreth as Officer Lockstock were both worthy successors to Jennifer Laura Thompson and Jeff McCarthy, respectively. They really got the style of the piece exactly right, and she especially had a beautiful singing voice. This is a musical deconstruction -- Little Sally and Lockstock explaining and commenting on the title of the musical and on the necessities of certain parts of the writing and the audience's needs to understand it. It's part Brechtian in that way to keep an audience at arm's length, and the look and overall feel of the piece immediately brings to mind Weill and Brecht's "Threepenny Opera', even while there's a pastiche of some other different musical genres in some of the songs. The choreography was fun, and overall I had a good time. But I think the casting could have been better. |
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