At Bard, It’s a Privilege to Pee

Clementine Kline ’25

The hottest ticket on Broadway today is not Hamilton or Six, but rather a different historical metanarrative by the name of Urinetown. Though this musical wasn’t penned by Lin Manuel Miranda, it was written by several equally qualified individuals: the Bard Manhattan Sophomore Seminar faculty. Don’t be fooled by its pissy name—the musical is as, if not more, postmodern as anything you’ve pretended to read for class. Though Urinetown: The Musical first opened in 2001, perfectly coinciding with BHSEC Manhattan’s establishment, the script for the revival was revised by Drs. Embola, Kelly, Mazie, and Turoff to fit an ever changing syllabus in this unstable world. 24 years later, they claim the purpose of the show is the same—to capture students’ attention spans longer than Darwin’s The Descent of Man—though we have reason to suspect a more sinister motive. 

Urinetown begins as all good senior years do—with a whole lot of Marx. The audience is introduced to a town that has been devastated by drought. The corrupt megacorporation, Urine Good Company, has capitalized the act of using the restroom due to its toll on the town’s dwindling water supply. No one has a room of their own (wonder what Woolf would have to say about that…) to pee in, and monetized public “amenities” are the only way to go. Because the patrons of the poorest urinal in town (the toiletariat, if you will) rally and revolt against the oppressive UGC, Bard students can’t help but think of the musical as a clear socialist critique. Much like the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill show, Threepenny Opera, Urinetown uses the technique of alienation to remind us of its absurdity. This involves but is not limited to: dramatized onstage urination, big bad businessmen in bunny slippers, and plenty of people thrown off of buildings. The absurdity does not end there, however—the twists and turns of the UGC’s bureaucracy can only be described as kafkaesque. People are often taken away to “Urinetown” to be penalized, though their supposed crimes and punishments are left unclear. Obviously some of Bard’s faculty are trying to make up for the fact that The Trial was taken off the syllabus. Like any good bureaucracy, UGC has its ways of keeping their patrons in check, ensuring that the public never goes unscrutinized. Much like in Foucault’s panopticon, visibility is a trap. In another pointed reference, the musical’s heroine, Hope, deals with impossible questions, such as: can you disobey your father? Talk about Freud’s wet dream! The last words of the musical are “Hail Malthus,” a treat left for anyone who bothered to read the frontmatter of the Darwin anthology.

The musical is filled with fourth wall breaks from the jump. In the first scene, the narrator, Officer Lockstock (separated from his partner, Officer Barrel), discusses the musical itself with Little Sally, a girl reminiscent of Tagore’s Ratan. Throughout the musical, Sally offers advice to Lockstock, going so far as to question the merits of the show. Focusing on its poor title and subject matter, she talks about how these unfortunate factors “could kill a show pretty good.” Is that meta or what?! 

Little Sally is not the only one with critiques. Upon its opening in 2001, many claimed that Urinetown ripped off The Wiz, and there can only be one pee-inspired show on Broadway at a time. Presuming, however, that the Sophomore Seminar faculty took Bard’s academic integrity policies to heart, we should be safe from any plagiarism scandals for a while.

Unfortunately, BHSEC students do not seem to be receiving the academic messages of Marx & Company well, instead taking the musical as inspiration for their own revolutions. In 2021, lemon creme cookies and balloons were found stuffed into the toilets of the fourth floor bathrooms, causing Principal Emeritus Michael Lerner to comment on the culprit’s bad taste in sweet treats. This, however, may have been the expected student-reaction. Word on the street is that the musical was actually created to threaten Bard students, as our bathroom policies have descended into those of Urinetown, but only time will reveal the Sophomore Seminar faculty’s true intentions.