A rollicking, moving songfest of fellowship bursts forth
on the stage of Palm Beach Dramaworks inspired by the life, words and music of
Woody Guthrie. This high-energy
production of Woody Guthrie’s American
Song, as conceived by Peter Glazer, is particularly poignant and relevant
to our times. Does history change to
remain the same? Must there always be a
disenfranchised faction of Americans?
Woody Guthrie was first and foremost a poet of the people;
”people’s songs” as he called them, the aggrieved and the downtrodden, migrant
workers, busted union members, and victims of income inequality by birth. They were our farmers, our steel workers, our
coal miners, one might say the very builders of our great country, but
victimized by bankers, politicians, the Great Depression, and, then the final
blow, a severe drought that hit the Southern and Midwestern plains creating
hoards of “Dust Bowl refugees.” It may
be the dark side of the American Dream, but Woody had a dream of “A Better
World” and the goodness of the man and his dream shines through.
Guthrie presages such “peoples” performers as Bob Dylan, Bruce
Springsteen, and most recently receiving the Woody Guthrie Prize, the rocker
John Mellencamp. His spirit endures and
this show preserves it.
Peter Glazer’s musical was adapted entirely from
Guthrie’s words and music. It features five
gifted actors & singers who are backed by the musical ensemble of the three
Lubben Brothers (local multi-talented musicians and singers), playing a number
of instruments which amplify and elevate this memorable production. They serve as backup singers and musicians on
most songs, giving this production a special inspirational quality at times and
at others a downright knee slapping driving force.
The simplicity and the beauty of the music evoke those of
gospel songs and hymns. It is astounding
what Guthrie could do musically with just a few chords, songs sometimes just a
variation on the others. His heart-rending
words take flight in this production.
Glazer’s work is not a mere hootenanny; it is musical
theatre. The “book” in musical parlance
is about Guthrie at different stages of his life, and the turbulent times in
which he lived, the Gibson guitar being handed off as a baton from one
actor/singer to another. He thematically
ties all these pieces together into a chronological narrative, a Prologue, On
the Plains – the Early 1930s, A Train Heading West, The California Line, The
Jungle Camp, New York City, Middle 1940s, and then an Epilogue.
Director Bruce Linser is also obviously intent on making
this a meaningful show, not just a concert, working with the actors and the
technical crew to create an atmosphere of drama for each scene. He ensures that even though there are more
than a score of songs, the ensemble group holds together as an honest to
goodness musical, true to storytelling, making homogeneity out of a mosaic.
The actors start with the words of Woody, defining what
it means to be a ballad singer: The
ballad singer is a mystery to everybody except maybe his own self…. What heart
of the people has he found, what passport, what ticket, what philosophy, what
religious faith has he found that takes him out to the roads and the trails
again?
The words morph into one of Woody’s most famous ballads
which summarize the travelogue basis of the show and the hardships of those
years, the entire cast singing “Hard Travelin’” with exquisite harmony.
The stage is now set to trace Woody’s life. Representing Guthrie earlier in life is Jeff
Raab also known as “the Searcher,” singing a lick of the touching dust bowl
ballad / waltz ” “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,” and then a reprise of
“Oklahoma Hills.” This culminates in the
song “Dust Bowl Disaster.” Later in the
show he is “Cisco.”. He has a fine voice
and plays the guitar, banjo, and harmonica.
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Don Noble, Joshua Lubben, Jeff Raab, Michael Lubben,
Sean Powell, Cat Greenfield, Tom Lubben, Julie Rowe
Photo
by Cliff Burgess |
One of Guthrie’s best known songs “Bound for Glory” is
sung by the entire cast on a freight train with a hobo and “cripple Whitey.” The train is bound for the “glory” of
California and is amusingly choreographed as the actors are singing as the
train is moving at 60 mph. At the
California line the rousing and ironic “Do Re Mi” (what you had to have to get
into California) is sung by the five actors with gusto.
Sean Powell plays the next stage in Guthrie’s life with a
jovial exuberance, now that he is established as a bona fide folksinger. Powell is also the Musical Director of the
show and as such brings together the cast’s wonderful harmonies. He plays seven different instruments in the
show while having orchestrated it at the same time. His work is as important as the Director’s
and it is seamless throughout.
One of the two women in the show is Cat Greenfield who
comes from a blue grass background and cabaret theatre, exhibiting a fine, commanding
soprano voice, as well as playing the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and the spoons
(yes, the spoons, a real hoot). PBD
veteran Julie Rowe also triumphs in a number of roles, giving heart tugging
renditions of some songs and comic turns in others (she makes a great saloon
singer later in the show). They both add
a harmonizing poignancy to other songs, “Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way,” “End
of My Line,” and ”Grand Coulee Dam,” culminating in the moving “Pastures of
Plenty” at the end of Act I.
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Cat Greenfield, Joshua Lubben, Michael Lubben,
Tom Lubben, Don Noble, Sean Powell, Julie Rowe,
Jeff Raab Photo by Cliff Burgess
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The second act brings the musical to another level. While “Grand Coulee Dam” was the employment
they sought, Act II opens with the dark “Ludlow Massacre” which is about a miner’s
union strike during which 13 children were killed by National Guardsmen, Greenfield
and Rowe carrying the leads with the imaginative and effective playing of the
instruments in percussion, its military rhythm driving the song forward.
After that incident, the folksinger says the months flew past and the people faster.
The coast wind blew me out of San Francisco, over the hump to Los Angeles and
all the way to New York…. I run onto
a guitar playing partner standing on a bad corner. His name was Cisco Houston,
and he called his self the Cisco Kid.”
The “kid” introduces him to New York, and its saloon
halls, his next stop in his ramblin’ life, amusingly singing “New York Town”
together, vying with one another for sidewalk tips. They strike up a friendship with Cisco
offering a line that could summarize the show: As long as we've got wrecks,
disasters, floods, trade union troubles, high prices and low pay and
politicians, folk songs are on their way in.
The talk turns political and Guthrie’s “Union Maid,” is
sung with the catchy refrain, “Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking with the
Union.” This is a song for the entire
cast but is enthusiastically led by Cat Greenfield and Julie Rowe. Here the audience is invited to sing along,
and sing along they did with gusto.
Now we come to the tragic story of the Reuben James, the
first military vessel sunk by the Germans in WW II (Guthrie served in the
Merchant Marines). The folksinger
explains that the sinking happened before Pearl Harbor by a German U-Boat. He goes on to say I can't invent the news but I do my job, which is to fix the day's news
up to where you can sing it. A roar of
laughter came forth from the audience, acknowledging that in this respect times
have changed.
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| Don Noble Photo by Cliff Burgess |
But not all that much.
Here the show transitions to the mature Guthrie as “the writer” played by
Don Noble. Noble is a veteran of
Broadway with a commanding bass voice, and comes to the show with guitar and
mandolin skills as well. Among other
songs, he introduces what, to me is the show stopper, perhaps the most moving
Guthrie folksong, “Deportee” and as explained, A chartered Immigration Service plane crashed and burned in West Fresno
County this morning, killing 28 Mexican deportees, the crew and an immigration guard.
The “deportees” were illegal
immigrants and the song is about their stark anonymity to history and an
indifference to them as human beings.
The song itself is sung primarily by Cat Greenfield, silhouetted
by a spotlight, with the cast joining in. The parallels to our time are unmistakable with
barely a dry eye in the audience. From
the lyrics: Some of us are illegal, and
some are not wanted, / Our work contract's out and we have to move on; / Six
hundred miles to that Mexican border,/ They chase us like outlaws, like
rustlers, like thieves….We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,/ We
died in your valleys and died on your plains. / We died 'neath your trees and
we died in your bushes, / Both sides of the river, we died just the same. The song’s Chorus, heartbreaking,
devastating…Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye,
Rosalita, / Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria; / You won't have your names when
you ride the big airplane, / All they will call you will be
"deportees".
The show gathers momentum to a happier conclusion, with “Better
World”, and the iconic “This Land Is Your Land.” There are many comic moments too, one of
which Director Linser has the cast singing a lick of song, lined in a row facing
the audience with their steel stringed instruments, one hand working the frets
and the other strumming the strings of the musician next to him or her! A crowd pleaser.
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Julie Rowe, Jeff Raab, ,Don Noble, Cat Greenfield,
Joshua Lubben, Sean Powell, Michael Lubben ,Tom Lubben
Photo by Alicia Donelan |
A complex show such as this also succeeds because of the technical staff, Palm Beach Dramaworks’ being second to none.
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| Photo by Robert Hagelstein |
Scenic Design by Michael Amico was influenced by the
American painter and muralist, Thomas Hart Benton whose work focused on the mid
West. He was able to transfer the sense
of Benton’s color and movement to a barn siding, depicting Guthrie’s “journey”
from west to east.
This gave Costume Designer Brian O’Keefe colors to work
with and as the journey takes place over a lifetime, multiple costumes for the
characters, adding still another layer to the production. The costumes reflect the threadbare realism of
the characters' hard times and their regionalism.
John D. Hall’s lighting design is careful not to wash out
the colors, but highlight the action.
Brad Pawlak’s sound design finds ways to provide depth to the sound,
especially when the show reverts to narrative.
And what further accolades can be said about veteran PBD Stage Manager of
more than fifty shows, James Danford, other than his self deprecating comment
at a talk back, “I only said ‘start’ some 300 times.”
This is a feel good musical, filled with both pain and
joy. As the show ends with his most
easily recognizable “This Land Is Your Land" you’ll find yourself emerging
from the theatre savoring the words or singing them out loud as the audience
did last night, celebrating what it means to live here in this great land, even
perhaps with a sense of optimism in the headwinds of history and our times.
