Oh boy!

I saw a revival of the musical Annie in Hollywood over the weekend, while visiting relatives in Glendale.  My family was celebrating the fifth birthday of my younger great niece Hayden, and observing the sacred rituals of Halloween.

I first saw Annie in Seattle, not long after its first appearance on Broadway in 1977.  That seems like yesterday, but we took my very young niece to that first showing; on Sunday we took her daughter Hayden.  Time flies.

I remember enjoying Annie the first time, and I recalled a few of the songs -- mainly its most famous number, "Tomorrow."  What I didn't remember were the strong political overtones to the musical, a leftist political emphasis almost as pronounced as that in the 2008 Broadway production (2005 in the West End) of Billy Elliot.

The musical is based on the comic strip -- beloved by all of us of a certain age -- "Little Orphan Annie."  As I recall the strip, it was something of an adventure series with Annie rushing around the world, together with her trusty dog Sandy -- and backed up when necessary by the somewhat shadowy figures of Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks and the Sikh bodyguard Punjab. 

According to Wikipedia -- whose entry matches my recollection -- the cartoonist's politics which

seem to have been broadly conservative and libertarian with a decided populist streak, introduced some of his more controversial storylines. He would look into the darker aspects of human nature, such as greed and treachery. The gap between rich and poor was an important theme. His hostility toward labor unions was dramatized in the 1935 story "Tonite". Other targets were the New Deal, communism, and corrupt businessmen.

The musical shows how Annie was first rescued from her Dickensian orphanage and its sadistic manager, and was subsequently adopted by Daddy Warbucks.  Warbucks was a billionaire (back when a billion meant something, to paraphrase the musical), and had the FBI, the police, and virtually everyone else at his beck and call.  Rather than being hostile to FDR, he patronized him as a somewhat ineffectual cripple who just needed to be given a little backbone.

As a result, rather than "targeting" the New Deal -- Daddy Warbucks in the musical  actually originates the New Deal.  He tells Roosevelt, in so many words, to quit sitting around in his wheelchair making fireside speeches, for god's sake, and DO SOMETHING!!  There are bridges to be built -- highways, housing, etc.  Spend some money, hire folks who need jobs, build the country.  Use government spending to make the country prosperous -- not only to make people's lives tolerable, but to make America strong enough to meet the coming war with Germany.

FDR perks up from his depression, and all sing together that we'll have "A New Deal for Christmas":

[WARBUCKS]
And all through the land folks are bawling

 

[GRACE]
And filled with despair
'Cause cupboards are bare

 

[WARBUCKS]
 But Santa's got brand new assistants
There's nothing to fear
They're bringing a New Deal for Christmas
This year.

Now that's the kind of Daddy Warbucks I like to see!

Today's Republicans are, bit by bit, detaching themselves from their support of Big Business.  Fine!  Let's see if the Warbucks theory works -- that the interests of business can be made to coincide, or at least overlap in places, with the interests of the common man.  Let's see if the slogan by a "Daddy Warbucks" figure of the 1950s, "What's Good for General Motors is Good for the USA," really might have some validity today. 

And above all, let's stop trembling with fear at the idea of government deficit spending, when that spending is an investment in the capital goods and infrastructure of America, as well as in the economic survival of its workers.

"Leapin' Lizards, Sandy!"

"Arf!"