City Center's 24-25 Season: Ragtime, Urinetown, LaChiusa's Wild Party, Love Life — Page 15

Curious to know if the cast album is from a live performance or are they going into the studio to record the score? Looking forward to its release as it's an excellent score. 

Surprised there's been no reports from the final dress of Urinetown last night! Regardless, I'll be there this evening and I am very much looking to it- though I do wonder if it will seem.... far more prescient than ever.

I’ll be there tonight. Will report back. 

A very solid, entertaining production of a very kooky little show- with a couple of large caveats. I’m glad to report that this material holds up wonderfully thanks to its smart, tight script. Although it helped herald in the age of the self-aware meta musical, it avoids aging poorly by not indulging in specific parody and reference, but by sending up tropes and character archetypes of the form. And its satire remains as biting as ever, depressingly.

The cast mostly shines, which makes the few that don’t quite hit the mark stand out.

Stephanie Styles is delivering a comedic star turn here as Hope. Truly just a fantastically funny, consistently brilliant performance. Easily the MVP of this.

Keala Settle brings down the house on Privilege and leans into the character’s melodrama in act 2 in very entertaining ways.

Greg Hildreth is wonderful, especially as a late replacement. It’s great seeing him in a big role like this, and he’s ably assisted by the reliably funny Chris Fitzgerald.

The ensemble is uniformly great, led by Kevin Cahoon and Jenni Barber. This show needs an ensemble of character actors and they certainly found them. And Jeff Hiller wrings laughs out of merely walking up stairs. 

I was less enthusiastic about Jordan Fisher and Rainn Wilson. Fisher has his moments, and nails “Run Freedom Run” to the wall, but just doesn’t have the sharp comedic instincts needed to get through a lot of act 1. Wilson is fine, but seemed very tentative at moments and lacked the hammy gravitas needed to sell this role. It’s not fair to compare him to John Cullum, of course, but… 

 The biggest misfire here is Pearl Scarlett Gold as Little Sally. I think it’s a mistake to cast this role with an actual kid, and Gold just has so little presence here, is so quiet, and lands so few of her many jokes. It’s just a complete miss, and it’s very disappointing.

The production itself feels like a full staging of the show, keeping its scrappy downtown feel while filling the stage. The back-to-back production numbers that kick off Act 2 play like gang busters. 
Teddy Bergen’s direction is mostly tight and sharp, but many of the vaudevillian comedic bits in the script don’t quite land (all the “whaaa?” reactions, the “you, you, and you” running bit) and need more polishing. This is a show that needs everybody at an 11 and on the exact same tonal page, and the ensemble mostly is, but when they’re not it’s very conspicuous. But I think more time will be beneficial there.

Overall, I do recommend seeing this and the positives greatly outweigh my reservations. It’s just a great musical and I’m very happy to have it back on a NY stage. 

Wilson is def an odd choice, but the conception of Cladwell is also kind of off. The character is really written as a melodrama top hatted robber baron, and that leant itself to John Cullum incredibly well. Cladwell here is given a black turtleneck and blazer, which reads as tech ceo from the recent past. But nothing else is done to support that potential take on the character so it’s sort of in between the two visions. 

First time seeing it and I thought it was okay if not a tad disappointing. To me, the strongest section was the back half of act 2 and that felt like a tighter show tonally.


Also felt like there were audio issues at times.

 

Updated On: 2/5/25 at 10:59 PM

Kad said: "Wilson is def an odd choice, but the conception of Cladwell is also kind of off. The character is really written as a melodrama top hatted robber baron, and that leant itself to John Cullum incredibly well. Cladwell here is given a black turtleneck and blazer, which reads as tech ceo from the recent past. But nothing else is done to support that potential take on the character so it’s sort of in between the two visions."

I suppose that’s how time has changed the show…in 2001 Cladwell (the unelected private citizen wreaking havoc on the town) was Trump, nowadays he might be more Musky.

OceansJenny said: "First exposure to the material. Didn’t do much for me. Even tried to put myself back in 2001 mentally and still nothing. Just not that funny. And spenttoo much time trying to buy into the conceit (can’t they just go in containers? Or in the dirt somewhere?)

I did enjoy Little Sally and Lockstop. I thought Little Sally was excellent, she had great comedic timing. Rainn Wilson was fun, perfect as a treat in a 2 week run.


Hope’s outfit was giving me major Glinda vibes."

Oof, I hated Little Sally. No offense to the kid, who was doing her best, but she had no sense at all of the irony and comedy of almost every line she says.   I saw the original production multiple times and without a strong Little Sally, I think the show suffers greatly.  I thought it was really bad choice by the director and team to go that route.  The obvious star of the show was Hope. She knew what show she was in and played it to perfection.  And her singing voice is stellar.   Besides her and Lcokstock, I felt most of the other major principals struggled to get there.  Overall, I found it a fairly disappointing evening. 

Expected more enthusiasm. These are very tepid reactions.

It was both the original cast and the time that made this show special when it first ran, but I don't think it was ever a great show. 

The URINETOWN slander is hurting my soul. lol. I have always loved this show, as have my peers. I do wonder how I would feel watching it cold for the first time in 2025. That said, it has always been such a favorite of mine.

Oof. Urinetown was a misfire. Tone was all over the place and it had none of the cheeky charm or grit of original, while nothing new was gained. 

Updated On: 2/6/25 at 12:18 PM

The most dated thing in this show is the whole joke of Lockstock and Little Sally is a reference to those “Hey Mister aren’t drugs bad?” Stupid videos you’d have to watch in school from the 60’s- early 90’s.

But if you don’t have that context and are young, it’s not that funny.

I think the show is a product of its time that catered to in humor of Boomers and for that matter 30 percent of it is a giant parody of classic broadway shows. 

I actually think the best thing about this show is the music is beautiful.

Even though it definitely thematically captures something timely of now, the actual content is kinda stale.

or maybe it should just stay the wacky college musical it is these days