Naming Conventions

If you read the script excerpt I included in the last post, then you have an idea how Marc Blitzstein went about naming the characters in The Cradle Will Rock, with a strong "name as label" convention:  Mr. Mister, Editor Daily, Dr. Specialist, Larry Foreman, Reverend Salvation, and Harry Druggist.  Urinetown pays homage to this production by using the same conventions: the determined Bobby Strong, the rich and well-dressed Mr. Cladwell, the optimistic Hope Cladwell, the miserly Miss Pennywise, and the brutal and well-armed Officers Lockstock and Barrel.

These last two deserve some special discussion.  It is not until Act II that the audience first becomes aware of the naming joke - both names are not spoken together before intermission. But even this joke has layers.  The names Lockstock and Barrel are obviously referring to the various parts of a gun, which both characters carry in the execution of their police brutality. But the cliché phrase "lock, stock, and barrel" also commonly implies everything, or completeness.  It is not an accident that in every scene in the show, these two characters represent the entire police force (leading to more jokes about the two-membered team). Only in the Cop Song do other cops appear, and here they appear to be only symbolic.

Greg Kotis draws upon another uniquely American pop culture convention for the names of some of the remaining characters - what I'll call the Dick Tracy naming convention.  Robbie the Stockfish, Soupy Sue, Little Becky Two-Shoes, Tiny Tom, Billy Boy Bill, etc., all are names squarely rooted in the American tradition, but storybook names, without a sense of reality about them.  This is a deliberate choice on Kotis's part, which will be the subject of a future discussion.