CHAPTER FORTY ONE

FORTY ONE
Ukulele, Baby is a charming little contemporary
musical, full of original sweet songs that move
forward a comic story of a dystopian future. It got rave
reviews when the author and composer, Mac Watson,
mounted it in early 2008. Danny Limm directed it,
which is also how we first came to know each other. I
am the producer.

Despite the wonderful notices Ukulele, Baby
received, none of the commercial producers in New
York, other than me, deemed it worthy of as much
as bothering to go to see it. A couple people sent
their office rats – twenty-somethings empowered by
degrees from institutions of higher education to pass
judgment on new work, as long as they judge “no” –
but most of the powers that be did not even bother to
do that.
Fifty years ago the sort of press Ukulele, Baby
got would have guaranteed a Broadway run. That was
before the corporate plutocracy and elitist educational
meritocracy combined forces to create the current
culture of philosophic and artistic pabulum in the
theater.
It happens that the playwright and I share the
same theatrical attorney. As I said, Jacob is one of
the brightest bulbs on Broadway these days, so it is
no surprise to me that he is able to spot talent when others are only capable of seeing it in the mirror. Jacob convinced me to go see Ukulele, Baby. Even though it has not made me a ton of money, I am glad he did.
Mac Watson was happy to have any deal that moved the production to the next level. Jacob made sure our agreement was fair and I was happy to put my name on a production that was fresh and vibrant and was written by someone who has original ideas that challenge the current corporate power structure. If you have not figured it out yet, there is an anarchist lurking somewhere near the core of my being. And why not? Chaos lends itself to unfettered feeding.
Ukulele, Baby is the story of three young outlaw musicians at the end of the Twenty First Century. All of society is controlled by the One World Pharmaceutical Corporation.
This complete take over happened after total economic and environmental collapse at mid-century led to the Great Emergency, a twenty-five year period of society breaking down while malevolent corporate consolidation took place. As it says in the show, this collapse was the result of a long period of human history dominated by a gruesome and greedy business creed which can be summed up as “Burn it and we will profit.”
Of course, that is not far from the truth. Whether the “it” that gets burned is coal or oil or electricity or entire countries, it always leads to corporate growth. Someone once said that growth for the sake of growth is what drives a cancer cell. Corporations certainly seem like a form of cancer to me.
In the future where Ukulele, Baby is set, much of what we now consider normal behavior is considered abnormal and subject to treatment with pharmaceuticals. Drug evasion is illegal in this future. So is making live music, unless one is a member of the corporate Top Ten. Top Ten musicians are allowed to do whatever they want, and are the only people permitted to wear the coveted Golden Jumpsuit.
The three musicians who are the main characters – two gals and a guy – meet in secret to play their own music on ukuleles, an instrument that is small and easy to conceal. One of their music sessions in an abandoned warehouse is interrupted by an “edger”-- more or less a homeless person.
This edger, named Pete, may or may not be more than he seems. During the course of the action, he reveals himself, first to Corporate Security, then to the trio, as a golden jumpsuit-wearing former Top Ten musician.
The edger eventually manages to cajole the trio of ukulele players into escaping corporate society by promising to take them to Ukulele Land. This place turns out to be an abandoned farmstead where he drops them off to practice and then disappears.
After dealing with the bafflement of living in an archaic manner – much of which is quite familiar to the audience as part of contemporary life, leading to some good laughs – the edger reappears with the news that he has arranged to get the trio into the Top Ten. And so the first act ends.
During every intermission we have a door prize drawing, based on seat numbers, and the winner gets a ukulele just like one of those played by the characters in the show. During the Great Depression, door prizes were common. It seemed to me that it was time to revive the custom, and I was right. People love that drawing. It was my big contribution to the show.
Pete delivers on his promise in the second act and the trio is launched into the corporate-controlled Top Ten. Meanwhile, the guy and one of the young women in the band find themselves in love while Pete and the other gal fall for each other.
Then Pete gets arrested for not being who he claims he is. It turns out he found the golden jumpsuit in a dumpster behind a crematorium. He used the status and power conferred by the golden jumpsuit to get the trio into the Top Ten. He is thrown into jail for drug evasion and impersonating a Top Ten member. The young musicians, now legitimately clad in golden jumpsuits themselves, realize that Pete risked everything for them.
In their first world wide simulcast concert, in front of a stadium full of people, they refuse to play their corporate hit I Wanna Be A Drug and instead treat the audience to the song Ukulele, Baby, a song that Pete taught them in the first act. It is a song full of sweetness and optimism.
The audience of the future goes wild for this song. People everywhere are touched by the music and they rise up and riot in the streets – which is a great dance number. Corporate control collapses. All the drug evaders, including Pete, are set free. He finds the trio playing music in the streets, amidst the chaos of revolution. There is a double marriage.
The show ends with cast and chorus onstage strumming ukuleles and singing. Peace, music and love return to the planet forever.
Audiences love the show. It plays in a sweet little two hundred fifty seat theater and Ukulele, Baby gives every indication of running until the end of the century.
Ukulele, Baby has already paid me back my investment. I do not make anything on the production. It is in such a small house that there is almost no profit margin; but I am not losing anything either. It gives me pleasure to have a show on the boards down in Greenwich Village. It is almost the same as it was a hundred years ago. I love to walk along the shadowy tree-lined street where the theater is located. As long as the show continues to break even, I will keep it running.
Now, of course, there are all sorts of people nosing around and suggesting that we should move the show to Broadway. The playwright was going for these pitches from those same producers who, despite his having come up with this delightful entertainment, first shunned him based on his lack of proper credentials.
Mac Watson is a high school drop out, war veteran and a jailbird, due to his having been caught by the police with three hundred pounds of marijuana in the late 1970s. He is now in his sixties. I love all these things about him and part of my motivation in keeping the show open is to flaunt his presence, to tweak the collective nose, as it were, of the hoity toity, youth-obsessed Ivy Leaguers and other elite who are taken aback by Mac’s gritty curriculum vitae. Mac is also the person who introduced “my father” to the forger who provided his passport for the ill-fated London trip, though he has not mentioned that fact to me in my current incarnation. He did mention knowing my “dad” but did not go into detail and I never asked. He has not offered to get me some weed.