The Premier’s summer musical

To find one’s self in Ontario during the early summer of 2009 is to be transported back to small town Iowa in the year 1912. That was the place and time depicted by Broadway legend Meredith Willson in his Tony award winning stage hit, The Music Man. 

    In Mr. Willson’s extravaganza, the townsfolk of River City are at odds; to paraphrase the familiar lyrics of the show-tune, “They got trouble.” The municipal authorities, led by Mayor George Shinn, are unable to contend with the threat to civic order represented by the opening of a new pool hall. In their fear, incompetence, and lack of sophistication, they become prey to a travelling con-artist, Prof. Harold Hill, who convinces the hick-town politicians that the answer to all their problems lies in establishing a boys’ band. The professor, of course, has an ulterior motive. He intends to exploit the River Citians’ uninformed enthusiasm, by taking their money and delivering nothing. 

    The whole world loves The Music Man: whether we’re discussing the original 1957 stage version, the 1962 screen adaptation, or the Broadway and UK revivals, which occurred in 2000, and 2008, respectively. However, no one is as fond of the enduring musical as is Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. The Premier enjoys The Music Man so much that he has taken an extraordinary step toward further popularizing the play throughout his province. 

    As his personal contribution to the lively arts, Premier McGuinty has created, and performs in, his own updated 2009 version of The Music Man, in a summer stock production for Ontario audiences. He has also cast several members of his cabinet in key roles in this entertainment, and placed the spotlight on a deserved selection of talented behind-the-scenes personnel. Bravo, and take a bow, Mr. Premier!

    Mr. McGuinty has cleverly revised the script to make it more meaningful to contemporary audiences, and, in a minor adjustment, has transplanted the setting from small-town Iowa, to the Ontario Parliament. To make things more topical, his crisis has nothing to do with a pool hall, but rather, with healthcare. 

    Indeed, he’s got trouble, right here, right here. His health minister, a Buddy Hackett lookalike whose mother got him his job, can’t seem to deliver services to patients, and this minister’s idea of how to solve the crisis is to glue posters to the wall in the Buffalo, NY air terminal, inviting any physicians who may be passing through to relocate to Ontario.*

    Personally taking on the role of the bumbling Mayor Shinn, Mr. McGuinty provides a convincing portrayal of a sitting duck waiting for the arrival of the conniving Harold Hill character, who offers a solution to the healthcare crisis. In this revised version of the musical, it isn’t a boys’ band, but something even more preposterous: electronic health records! 

    The political leaders, not understanding a thing about electronic health records, or much else, either, seize on the opportunity to be seen as doing something useful, and agree to set up a public agency to undertake the project, which, in a moment of inspired comedy, they decide to call E-health Ontario. 

    Mr. McGuinty, employing grand theatrical gestures, writes out a cheque on the provincial treasury for $25 million, and hands it to the health minister, who in turn hands it with a flourish to Prof. Hill, represented by an Ethel Merman lookalike who is the executive director of the agency. The characters celebrate their achievement by singing the show-stopping “E-health Ontario” song, which is performed to the tune of “Gary, Indiana,” from Willson’s original score. The lyrics have been revised as follows:

E-health Ontario!

What a wonderful name, 

The ‘E’ stand for electronic; that’s our game.

E-health Ontario, all your health records on a card,

Pork for all us insiders, so, come on, let’s spread the lard —

E-health Ontario, E-health Ontario, E-health Ontario,

Let me say it once again.

E-health Ontario, E-health Ontario, E-health Ontario,

Now let’s go out, and hire all our frien’s.

    This rousing number brings down the curtain on Act I. 

    Act II begins with an ensemble of E-health Ontario consultants and contractors who form a barbershop quartet, submitting invoices to the province for duties such as munching on pastries during bull sessions, reading the newspaper, and chatting with each other on the telephone. Mayor McGuinty appears on stage momentarily to inquire about what is taking place. “Oh, we’re busy creating electronic health records,” the group exclaims. “Excellent! Carry on then,” says the Mayor, as he confusedly strides off-stage. 

    The plot thickens, as some of the townsfolk seem to cotton on to the idea that their mayor is being hornswaggled, or perhaps hoodwinked. 

    “This is crazy. Why do we need to spend all this money, if all we need is electronic health records?”, cries a cast member. “There are dozens of suppliers who will provide solutions for next to nothing! Why don`t we just ride along with a successful existing program, join forces with Google and the Cleveland Clinic, or Microsoft and the Mayo Clinic, and spend the 25 million bucks on patient care? Can’t you see that River City is being conned?”

    The community’s anxiety eventually penetrates Mayor McGuinty’s fog of obliviousness, and he calls a town-hall meeting in the high school gym, to determine what to do with E-health Ontario. Wringing his hands, he asks, “Where’s the e-health records? Where’s the e-health records?”

   Ethel Merman, fearing that her ruse has been exposed, is about to be led away in handcuffs by the town constable. Just then the cast convenes to perform the rousing closing number: 

Twenty-three genomes led the big parade

With a hundred and ten DNA samples close at hand.

They were encoded on smart, smart cards 

that were stacked in feet and yards

and contained your ev’ry DNA strand.

Twenty-three genomes on a plastic plate

With a hundred and ten molecular cures right behind

There were plenty of chromosomes 

Just like subdivision homes

There were cytoplasms of ev’ry shape and kind.

   Encores abound. Theatrical critics across the province can only agree that Dalton McGuinty owns the role of Mayor Shinn, and that, by offering this musical spectacle to the province’s taxpayers, he is the most successful impressario the province has seen since Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb—pending the result of Garth and Myron’s Supreme Court appeal, of course.

   Premier McGuinty’s version of The Music Man passes the ultimate test of any stage performance, which is that audiences are guaranteed to leave the theatre singing the hit tune, “We got trouble.”

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* (This part is absolutely true; no one except the health minister could possibly have made this poster idea up.)