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 company and 55 percent have formed a less favorable opinion "based on what they have recently seen, heard, or read."

Documentary filmmakers even stepped into the debate with Robert Greenwald's disparaging movie The High Cost of Law Price. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, community theater has joined the fight. Walmartopia, 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.

Written by Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn, Walmartopia offers a dark vision of the future. This is not Capellaro and Rohn's first venture into political theater. In 2001, this duo wrote Temp Slave, a musical about temporary workers. (Full disclosure: Capellaro once worked at the Progressive Media Project, an affiliate of The Progressive.)

"We believe we can affect public opinion and entertain people by this old-fashioned device called the musical comedy," says Capellaro. "We'd really like to get the attention of people who say that political theater is dead and musicals are just commercialized crap."

[Graphic omitted] The heroine of Walmartopia sings the opening line, "Life is hard." 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.

Vicki wants a promotion. Co-workers Miguel Hernandez and Annie Wilson want a union.
But Vicki thinks an organizing effort creates too many risks. "Call me stupid, but I believe in this company," Vicki sings. "If I don't believe, then what am I doing? ... I still believe in the American dream."

Miguel and Annie reply, "We need a new American dream, not just one for the few." Vicki stops cold this romanticism. "How can I think of sorry ideals?" she wonders. But when an anticipated promotion falls through yet again, Vicki becomes receptive to these "sorry ideals."

In the second act, the American dream morphs into a very campy dread. (The future ominously sounds like 1980s pop.) Vicki enters a portal that takes her to a dystopian future circa 2035, a place where Wal-Mart runs just about everything. There's School-Mart, Wal-Art--even homeland security exists as a subsidiary of the superstore. "I'm in some kind of conspiracy nightmare," says Vicki.

Wal-Mart's 2035 management forces Vicki to undergo a psychiatric readjustment. Vicki lies her way out of the psych ward and goes on to infiltrate the company's Christmas play. Vicki and her new cohorts (apparently, Wal-Mart employees are disgruntled in 2035) deviate from the script. The company Christmas play unravels into a free-for-all, where the cast proposes ways to combat mass-produced culture.
In the musical's triumphant finale, the cast belts out "Hijack It," the best song of the show. The players laud creativity and independence as the antidotes to the big box mentality.

The music rocks the show. The band plays tightly, and the tunes are melodic and memorable. The music ranges from classic rock to country to pop. The choreography utilizes all of the stage. 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.

Exaggeration is an important aspect of camp, and the play-wrights make good use of it. 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. 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 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.

In one comical scene, the CEO fights a school of guppies. (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.") "Carping on about laws, regulations, ethics," sings the CEO as he swipes at the guppified actors encircling him. "Dante never knew such inferno."

Walmartopia doesn't cover new ground. Anyone who reads the newspapers has seen evidence of Wal-Mart's labor problems. But as homegrown political theater, the musical is hilarious. 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. In the handbill, the playwrights note that "Wal-Mart plans to double the amount of stores it operates--in the next five years."

Walmartopia may resonate best with those who don't shop at Wal-Mart. It is a musical for the converted. 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?

"Art is too important to be left to the experts," says a character named Zeb near the end of Walmartopia. "We need to do it for ourselves." I agree. But does "doing it for ourselves" mean we talk only to ourselves?

Elizabeth DiNovella is the culture editor of The Progressive.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The Progressive, Inc.