What's in a name? Delightful 'Urinetown'
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By NANCY VAN VALKENBURG
Standard-Examiner staff
Diana Cox knew she'd have to be creative to clothe the characters of "Urinetown," but the student designer didn't realize until she was into the process that she'd be dressing her actors in mattress covers, potholders, packing blankets and drink coasters.
The satirical musical, which opens today at Weber State University, is set in a drought-plagued world of the ultra-rich and desperately poor. A corporation owned by the rich controls the toilets, forcing the poor to pay per flush. Using anything other than a pay toilet is an offense with potentially fatal repercussions.
"I started thinking about what happens to our clothes if we can't use water to wash them," said Cox, 24, a WSU senior from Washington Terrace. "They might start stinking, and standing on their own. We might not want to wear those clothes anymore, but any money we had would be used to go to the bathroom. People would find things around them to make clothes out of."
Cox decided her poor characters would live in a world of conspicuous recycling.
"I made a dress out of a mattress cover, and we used the inside of the mattress on the set," Cox said. "Another dress is made out of the cloth from four umbrellas, and one person is wearing a vacuum bag. The umbrella dress is actually really cute. I would totally wear it."
Nothing was safe from the costumer's roving eye.
"I used a lot of random things that people might find," Cox said. "One of our skirts is made from coasters from a restaurant. I had to beg a restaurant for coasters, then I had to punch holes in them and string them, and put them on something to hold them in place. This was not buying fabric and just covering bodies."
Oh, two more costume requirements: Each piece had to be nonrestrictive, to allow for dancing, and each piece had to last through the final performance.
"We couldn't really make anything out of paper," Cox said. "Paper wouldn't survive the choreography. Hopefully, the coaster skirt will last."
Design challenges
"Urinetown" has called for the most creative costuming Cox has ever done, she said.
"It's been difficult, but it's been a lot of fun. It gives the audience something more to think about, but it's not like I did it totally in your face," Cox said. "With these costumes, you kind of look for a while, then say, 'Wait a minute, is that dress made of neckties?'<2009><2009>"
Student Tiara Wallgren, 26 and an Ogden resident, is handling makeup and hair, which includes 11 women's wigs that reflect design extremes.
"I tried to stay in keeping with Diana's concept of garbage, and making the poor people look as droopy and down as possible, and the rich people look as tight and up as possible, since some of the characters are played by the same people."
The poor women get knotty, asymmetrical hair, or locks strewn with decorative garbage or chunks of dirt. The rich women get dozens of tight, glossy curls, pinned into place, or other precision hair sculptures.
It was up to student set designer Jamie Frank to create the charald. Jim Christian, head of the musical theater program at WSU, directs the production.
"Jim Christian and I decided we wanted to create a world falling apart, in chaos and disorder," said Frank, a 20-year-old junior from Ogden. "We have buildings falling apart, and poo and urine colors that filter into their world. We wanted to create the symbolism that the whole world has become their bathroom. There's even a center pipe that goes into the set that has a flusher handle. There's a pipe that leads the audience in, then a pipe entryway. The audience will have a sense of walking into the world of 'Urinetown.' "
Backstory
According to theater lore, the play's author, Greg Kotis, was a student touring Europe on a shoestring when he encountered the budget-busting pay toilets. The final script, with music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann, hit several early obstacles because of its themes and name, despite the fact that the play contains no offensive language and no sexual situations.
"It's got a complex plot with multiple themes, but the main thing it's about is socialism versus capitalism, and the lower class struggling with the upper class," Frank said. "The lower-class people can't afford to go to the bathroom. They are repressed because they can't afford it. It's natural for humans to go to the bathroom. They fight because they want their natural human rights."
Christian said themes from the musical are reflected in news headlines every day.
"There are all kinds of overconsumption all over the world," he said. "There are huge energy issues now, whether you are talking about oil or coal, which are part of our story. Water from our state is being shipped to Las Vegas and California. There are questions about disappearing jobs and a struggling economy. There are so many applications from the play to real world. But rather than be heavily preachy, 'Urinetown' puts everything out there and allows people to mull it over after the fact."
"Urinetown" opened in 2001 and ran for nearly 1,000 performances. The show has toured, and more recently has been produced by community theaters and even some high schools, including Layton High School in 2007.
Theatrical fun
As a treat to musical-theater fans, "Urinetown" also finds time to parody Broadway shows, including "Evita," "Les Misérables," "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof."
"It's incredibly fun," Christian said. "It's one of the funnest shows I have encountered in my life. They even joke in the play that people won't come because the subject matter is so awful. It's really some of the most brilliant writing in musical theater. It snagged writing awards right and left when it opened. It's a lot like 'Sweeney Todd' in that it keeps the audience laughing, but off balance in a lot of ways."
Christian is proud of his actors, but he added that costume, set, lighting and sound designers are the some of the theater world's unsung heroes.
"They create the environment in which the story is told," Christian said. "They set the atmosphere for this whole other world. They help tell the story. Diana has costumes made of garbage bags, zippers, shower curtains and all kinds of found items, which helps develop the whole theme of desperate times and desperate measures, and it helps set up the whole contrast between the haves and have-nots.
"Jamie helps set up the contrast of one part of society filled with decay and another part of society in a sparkling, fresh environment, like a perfectly scrubbed and polished bathroom."
Christian hopes potential audience members will overlook the show's title.
"So many people, is it fair to say, lack the courage," he said. "They think it is going to be offensive from start to finish. In the script, they address the subject matter, and they move on. It's more about the characters and the relationships. And the show has incredibly good writing and music. I hope people will come to the show and tough it out. Be brave."
PREVIEW
l WHAT: 'Urinetown'
l WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today, Saturday, Tuesday-Oct. 11, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 11.
l WHERE: Eccles Theater, Browning Center, Weber State University, 3848 Harrison Blvd., Ogden
l TICKETS: $8.50; $5.50/students, seniors and military personnel. (800) WSU-TIKS.
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