Imagine a world with a water shortage - and focus on the problem of water waste in toilets, then write a musical about it.
It costs money to use the facilities, one young, idealistic boy stands up against the evil, corporate controller of the water (who’s daughter falls in love with aforementioned boy. It’s a musical. These things happen), and loses. But it’s very, very funny. And the music is good.
My mom used to love to play the original cast recording when I was a little kid (with the great Jerry Orbach as El Gallo), so I learned all the songs from The Fantasticks from a very early age, without ever having seen the play to put them in context. But that part, the song “Round and Round,” used to depress and horrify me during my elementary school years, when the Boy was being tortured, and El Gallo would laugh and tell the Girl to put on a mask so she wouldn’t see his suffering, and then she’d just laugh about it… “If he fails, he’ll be cut to bits by those nails!” It all seemed terrifying and cruel. The song (and accompanying dialogue from the record) freaked me out, much worse than any sorts of horror movies I saw when I was that age.
It does have that whole “carnival-ish” sound that I’ve always found rather creepy…adding the “Heeeeelllllllllp!” over and over in the background can’t help things.
Yeah, that really fucked me up when I was six.