It is hard to believe that Urinetown: The Musical is a decade old, for this Brechtian send-up of the eternal battle between the haves and the have-nots seems ripped from today’s headlines.

For what is the conflict between corporate mogul Caldwell B. Cladwell, whose firm bought up all the public toilets in order to overcharge the masses to relieve themselves, and those who think such bodily functions are an inalienable right, but a thinly disguised parable of the one-percenters versus the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Or at least it would be if writers Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis took their story the least bit seriously. But they are too busy mocking the conventions of musical theater and aping the signature staging moves of iconic musicals to muster sufficient gravity over the central injustices they portray.

Book writer and co-lyricist Kotis has a winking way with a pun as the name of Cladwell’s firm, Urine Good Company, attests. Seizing the profit potential in a drought, Cladwell buys all the municipal toilets, like Amenity #9, where fee collector Penelope Pennywise (a bountiful, belting Cindy Pearce) upholds the corporate order and where her assistant, crusading Bobby Strong (fervent Daniel Schwab) hatches the idea to stir up the downtrodden and liberate the bathrooms so the multitudes can pee for free.

That is the premise of the show that allows West Boca’s Slow Burn Theatre Co. to have it both ways – dark-toned and silly.

Resident director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater strikes the right deadpan mood, leavened by sly send-ups of such shows as Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story. The more musicals-savvy you are, the more inside jokes you will catch, but even at the most basic level Urinetown is very clever stuff.

If there is a drawback to the production, it is the sub-par sound design by Traci Almeida. The balance between the vocals and Manny Schvartzman’s five-piece band was way off on Friday’s opening performance, rendered too many of the lyrics in the ensemble numbers shrill to incomprehensible. For a score that is unfamiliar to most of the audience, that lack of clarity is unfortunate.

Still, Slow Burn’s non-Equity cast is loaded with budding talent. Recent Palm Beach Atlantic University graduate Daniel Schwab anchors the show as rabble-rouser Bobby, with tongue firmly planted in cheek on such cornball rallying cries as Look to the Sky and Run, Freedom, Run.

His love interest – isn’t there always one? – happens to be Cladwell’s daughter Hope, disarmingly played by Lindsey Forgey, who has been Slow Burn’s go-to ingenue lately.

Perennial utility player and company co-artistic director Matthew Korinko handles the juicy role of narrator Officer Lockstock (yes, his partner is named Barrel), handling a first act hip-hop number with genuine street cred. And the true find of the production may be Jaimie Kautzmann as Little Sally, a smart-mouthed stand-in for the audience, regularly wondering whoever thought this was a good idea for a musical.

Urinetown is offbeat, to say the least. But go along with it for the sake of discovering some brash new voices in the musical theater and another must-see show from Slow Burn.

R E V I E W

Urinetown

B+

Rated: Brash new voices in musical theater.

Where: Slow Burn Theatre Company at West Boca High School, 12811 West Glades Road, Boca Raton.

When: Through Sunday

Tickets: $35. Call: (866) 811-4111.

The verdict: A Brechtian musical send-up of the eternal battle between the haves and have-nots, darkly comic and ably sung.