Population, Resources, and Human Idealism

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.energybulletin.net/15480.html

Urinetown is a funny, smart, Tony Award-winning musical. Its action takes place in a city of the future where, as the result of severe and ongoing water shortages, private toilets have been banned. A giant corporation, the Urine Good Company (UGC for short), is in charge of all pay-per-pee services. The gradually escalating price is still affordable to a well-off few, but teeming masses of poor have to scrape together piles of spare change every day in order to take care of their private business. This, announces policeman-narrator Officer Lockstock, is “the central conceit of the show.”

The cast includes a greedy villain (Caldwell B. Cladwell, the CEO of UGC), a courageous hero (Bobby Strong, a poor lad who works for UGC collecting fees at a down-scale public toilet), and a big-hearted heroine (Hope, Cladwell’s daughter). Bobby and Hope fall in love; Strong leads a rebellion against UGC; the “terrorists” take Hope hostage. She sings the uplifting “Follow Your Heart,” assuring herself and everyone else that love will win the day, but every line is tongue-in-cheek. Though Bobby is soon killed by UGC minions, Hope manages to gain ultimate power, disposing of her father and telling her followers that the time of deprivation is over. In the last scene, she sings the fervent anthem “I See a River,” envisioning a new era when all can pee as much as they like, whenever they like, wherever they like. However, by the end of the scene the entire cast—excepting the narrator—has perished in an ecological catastrophe. Officer Lockstock’s epilogue tells the sorry tale:

Of course, it wasn’t long before the water became silty, brackish, and then dried up altogether. Cruel as Caldwell B. Cladwell was, his measures effectively regulated water consumption. . . . Hope, however, chose to ignore the warning signs, choosing instead to bask in the people’s love as long as it lasted. Hope eventually joined her father in a manner not quite so gentle. As for the people of this town? Well, they did the best they could. But they were prepared for the world they inherited . . . . For when the water dried up, they recognized their town for the first time for what it really was. What it was always waiting to be . . .

The Chorus sings: “This is Urinetown! Always it’s been Urinetown! This place it’s called Urinetown!” And with their unison cry of “Hail Malthus!”, the curtain falls.