Wal-Mart Send-Up
Dinovella, Elizabeth
By Elizabeth DiNovella Wal-Mart Send-Up The debate about Wal-Mart took on new life in 2005. A December poll by Zogby International found 38 percent of Americans have a negative opinion of the...
...In the second act, the American dream morphs into a very campy dread...
...Wal-martopia, a new musical that challenges the behemoth from Bentonville, has opened to good reviews, and the playwrights hope to take it on a national tour...
...Exaggeration is an important aspect of camp, and the playwrights make good use of it...
...In his shiny patent-leather shoes, he barks on the phone to a manufacturer in China, asking her to find a way to save pennies...
...Wal-Mart's 2035 management forces Vicki to undergo a psychiatric readjustment...
...But does "doing it for ourselves" mean we talk only to ourselves...
...Vicki wants a promotion...
...Miguel and Annie reply, "We need a new American dream, not just one for the few...
...The music rocks the show...
...Walmartopia doesn't cover new ground...
...But when an anticipated promotion falls through yet again, Vicki becomes receptive to these "sorry ideals...
...In 2005, the real CEO told the Associated Press that the extensive criticism of Wal-Mart was comparable to "being nibbled to death by guppies...
...In the musical's triumphant finale, the cast belts out "Hijack It," the best song of the show...
...I agree...
...Vicki and her new cohorts (apparently, Wal-Mart employees are disgruntled in 2035) deviate from the script...
...Call me stupid, but I believe in this company," Vicki sings...
...Here in Madison, Wisconsin, community theater has joined the fight...
...The heroine of Walmartopia sings the opening line, "Life is hard...
...Vicki lies her way out of the psych ward and goes on to infiltrate the company's Christmas play...
...There's School-Mart, Wal-Art-even homeland security exists as a subsidiary of the superstore...
...We need to do it for ourselves...
...Vicki stops cold this romanticism...
...But as homegrown political theater, the musical is hilarious...
...A December poll by Zogby International found 38 percent of Americans have a negative opinion of the company and 55 percent have formed a less favorable opinion "based on what they have recently seen, heard, or read...
...Walmartopia may resonate best with those who don't shop at Wal-Mart...
...Vicki enters a portal that takes her to a dystopian future circa 2035, a place where Wal-Mart runs just about everything...
...Elizabeth DiNovella is the culture editor of The Progressive...
...It is a musical for the converted...
...In the handbill, the playwrights note that "Wal-Mart plans to double the amount of stores it operates-in the next five years...
...They portray Lee Scott, the actual CEO of Wal-Mart, as a maniacal boss named Scott Lee, driven by an incessant need to cut costs...
...If I don't believe, then what am I doing...
...Dante never knew such inferno...
...Coworkers Miguel Hernandez and Annie Wilson want a union...
...The play could sell out in Brattleboro, Vermont, but how would it fare next door in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, where a huge Wal-Mart greets you once you cross over into the state...
...I'm in some kind of conspiracy nightmare," says Vicki...
...In 2001, this duo wrote Temp Slave, a musical about temporary workers...
...Information on the musical can be found at www.walmartopia.com...
...And with the grim prospect of big box stores setting up shop in our towns and cities, opponents of Wal-Mart need entertainment along with the outrage...
...Documentary filmmakers even stepped into the debate with Robert Greenwald's disparaging movie The High Cost of Low Price...
...The company Christmas play unravels into a free-for-all, where the cast proposes ways to combat mass-produced culture...
...We believe we can affect public opinion and entertain people by this old-fashioned device called the musical comedy," says Capellaro...
...Art is too important to be left to the experts," says a character named Zeb near the end of Walmartopia...
...The costumes are a variation of the blue smocks found in the real-life Wal-Mart, and the sparse set allows for quick scene changes...
...Full disclosure: Capellaro once worked at the Progressive Media Project, an affiliate of The Progressive...
...How can I think of sorry ideals...
...But Vicki thinks an organizing effort creates too many risks...
...We'd really like to get the attention of people who say that political theater is dead and musicals are just commercialized crap...
...I still believe in the American dream...
...Written by Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn, Walmartopia offers a dark vision of the future...
...she wonders...
...This is not Capellaro and Rohn's first venture into political theater...
...The players laud creativity and independence as the antidotes to the big box mentality...
...Anyone who reads the newspapers has seen evidence of Wal-Mart's labor problems...
...The band plays tightly, and the tunes are melodic and memorable...
...The music ranges from classic rock to country to pop...
...The future ominously sounds like 1980s pop...
...The choreography utilizes all of the stage...
...In one comical scene, the CEO fights a school of guppies...
...Carping on about laws, regulations, ethics," sings the CEO as he swipes at the guppified actors encircling him...
...Vicki Latrell, a divorced, single mom who lives in a motel with her daughter, embodies the typical Wal-Mart employee: hard working, committed to the company, but going nowhere fast...
...Wal-Mart manages to get enough bad press on its own, and some of it shows up in the musical: the child labor investigations by the Department of Labor, the unionization efforts in Canada, the forced overtime, and the gender discrimination class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 1.6 million current and past female employees...
Vol. 70 • February 2006 • No. 2
