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Welcome to 'Mall-Mart'

Musical's numbers paint a picture of shameless shoppers

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 27, 2007 at midnight

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When Curious Theatre Company premieres Mall-Mart: The Musical Saturday night, it's a safe bet that Wal-Mart won't be among the sponsors.

The musical is a thinly veiled satire of the founder of Wal-Mart (example: Sam Walton becomes Walt Sampson) and the culture that supports it. The first act carries the air of a traditional, upbeat musical; after intermission, things get darker.

Where Wal-Mart is the home of foreign-made mass production, Mall-Mart is a homey affair with longtime Curious associate Joan Holden and composer Bruce Barthol, both of whom made their names with the politically oriented San Francisco Mime Troupe.

It's hard to know what to hum with a new show, so Barthol took us through a few of Mall-Mart's songs:

• Small Town Life: The opening number begins at a train station in Smithers, Walt Sampson's birthplace, where troops are departing for World War II.

"It's the enactment of a kind of social connection that's basically been lost in this country," Barthol says. "It's sung by Ella Walton - I mean, Ella Sampson. I'd better watch this.

"It's very up. There's a little bit of a flavor of the Jazz Age. There's a trio of women who sing the chorus, and they sound kind of like the Andrews Sisters."

• Winning: Sung by Walt, "It's his life philosophy," Barthol says.

He was inspired by an old song called I'm in the Jailhouse Now and gave it a soft-shoe quality.

"The only shadow is, he really does enjoy watching people crash and burn," Barthol says. "The first act is a lot based on (Walton's) autobiography, so we tried to adhere to events and talk about his drive."

• Nylons: The first nylons arrive in the local variety store, which is later swallowed up by Mall-Mart. It's sung as a recitative in an ostinato pattern, Barthol says, "but it's kind of a hillbilly ostinato pattern."

"It sets up a theme for shopping that is a major element of the play. Shopping goes from rather benign in the beginning of the first act to a diabolical event at the end of the second act."

• Twenty Dollars: "We're in a completely different world from the first act," Barthol says of the Act II opener. "We might be in a Laurie Anderson world."

Corporate vendors have come to Smithers to negotiate but find that the Mall-Mart buyers would rather buy cheaper products overseas.

"It's this kind of atonal juxtaposition between the waiting vendors, and then the buyers arrive and they're absolutely unperturbable," Barthol says.

A chair-maker sings, "What if I set up my plant in a prison?"

A buyer replies, "Some states do permit that now."

• One World, One Market, One Store: The new CEO of Mall-Mart comes in with a vision of taking over the world.

"His song stylistically is a big departure because it's absolutely surreal," Barthol says. "Office girls become chorus girls."

The chorus: "From Timbuktu to Katmandu, the whole world wearing Mall-Mart blue."

Mall-Mart: The Musical

• When and where: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through June 9, Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St.

• Cost: $14 to $32

• Information: 303-623-0524