Primary Research (Q & A Session)

This week, we had a musical theatre workshop with Madeleine, which was in the original cast of the West-End production, kicking off officially our journey in the play. She choreographed with us the song “Mr Cladwell” followed by a Q & A session.

When learning “Mr Cladwell”‘s choreography, I realised how much power Cladwell really has. His staff are a bunch of brainwashed executives that do anything that they’re told so they won’t lose their job. In fact, the lyrics go “Mister Cladwell/ We’re so thankful/ For that bank full of dough”. Dough meaning money.

Madeleine played a character called Soupy Sue. My character is Hot Blades Harry which is, as well as Soupy Sue, part of the poor. Madeleine was to me the first real contact with the poor family in the play. Well, we all know that the poor are poor and they use the filthiest and poorest public amenity (#9) in town. But what does this mean? What is it like to be in a town like Urinetown and being poor? What is it like having to pay to pee? Do they have their own houses or do they live all together? Are they homeless? If so, why are they homeless? Are they beggars? Do they use the money for drugs and alcohol or do they just keep it to use the toilet?

With this in mind, I asked her how did she prepare for the role. She said “The stakes are always high in this play. So I imagined how is it like to be this poor and having to pay to pee. My character (Soupy Sue) was very anxious, and since the stakes are that high, she had to be over to the top anxious. The poor lived all together, they’re a family. We had to create a backstory for each character and this gives a whole new depth to the story”. On a side note, she also mentioned something that I believe to be very interesting and also very important “Play the character truthfully. Don’t play it to be funny, the character is already funny and it’s funny because of how truthful it is”.

We feel that something is about to happen in the play, something is about to change. Fees have risen to use public toilets and people can barely afford to pay the old fee. If you don’t be careful you’ll end up in Urinetown. It’s matter of life or death. Her answer helps to understand the atmosphere they created, and how important the poor people are to set the atmosphere properly throughout the show. In order for the play to work on its political level, these many layers of depth have to be created. Creating a backstory for the character helps you understand it and when performing people will see that depth too. The way I want to research and create my character is based on Stanislavski’s method. I want to see how poor people are, how do they behave, what do they wear and how do they look. If possible have a little chat with them and try to understand how they feel. I’m “lucky” enough to see homeless people next to where I work every day so I can take a bit of time observing them. In the overall style of the play, I will be using Brecht’s technique, but I need to find the truth of the character first inside of me to be able to play truthfully.

Although there were several interesting questions, I focused only on mine because I think that it is research material in first hand. Madeleine brought a whole different meaning to the musical. “Play the character truthfully. Don’t play it to be funny, the script is funny, play the lines honestly and it just will be funny” made us understand that Urinetown is where we live right now, in this day and time. This is exactly what Brecht wanted, show you what’s wrong with the society and with that in mind make you change it. It’s not “Ur In Town” anymore but instead “OurTown”.