Date: Fri 16-May-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

theatre-Guthrie-

Full Text:

(rev "Woody Guthrie's American Song" @Danbury Theatre Co., 5/16/97)

Theatre Review-

Danbury Theatre Succeeds With An Important History Lesson

(with photo)

By Julie Stern

DANBURY - The Great Depression, which began with the Stock Market crash of

1929 and did not end until the country entered the Second World War, when the

need for military equipment generated production orders for stagnant factories

and jobs for unemployed workers, was a tragedy which impacted on society and

shaped the American character like none other, except perhaps the Vietnam War.

Because The Depression occurred before the days when television cameras could

flash live images of disaster into every living room, it became the province

of America's artists to record and interpret the human dimensions of the

catastrophe.

John Steinbeck's wrenching portrait of uprooted migrant workers in The Grapes

of Wrath, the haunting photographs of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange,

Reginald Marsh's etchings of big city breadlines and Thomas Hart Benton's

paintings of stoical sharecroppers are both part of our cultural heritage and

lessons in history as well.

Into this category too falls the itinerant folk singer-songwriter Woody

Guthrie, father of Arlo, who traveled across the country, playing for handouts

and writing songs that articulated the experiences of the people he met, until

he was felled at age forty by Huntington's chorea (now better known as "Woody

Guthrie's Disease").

In Woody Guthrie's American Song , the Danbury Theater Company has mounted a

multi-media tribute to Woody. Originally created by Peter Glazer, the show

tells the story of Guthrie's life, in his own words, taken from his

autobiography, Bound for Glory .

While constantly changing images of period photographs and Benton paintings

are flashed on screens on either side of the stage, Bruce Hanson's clever

staging uses simple props to follow the sequence of Guthrie's hard travels.

When dust storms and bank mortgage foreclosures drove the farmers of Oklahoma

and Arkansas off their land, he followed them to the supposed promised land of

California.

Scenes change from a West Texas barn dance to a moving freight car filled with

an assortment of hobos, from a migrant "jungle" camp filled with homeless

people waiting for work that never materializes, and back across the continent

to New York City and the Bowery bars, where Guthrie teamed up with another

wanderer, Cisco Houston.

The cast, comprised of Timothy Russell, Michael B. Pasternack, Richard

Reimold, Lani Peck and Susan Lang, takes turns narrating passages from

Guthrie's writing, alternating with medleys that incorporate more than two

dozen of his most famous songs, beginning with "Hard Travelin'" and closing

with a smashing rendition of "This Land is Your Land."

In between we hear "I Ain't Got No Home," "Bound for Glory", "Grand Coulee

Dam", "Hard, Ain't it Hard", "Union Maid," "The Sinking of the Reuben James,"

"Nine Hundred Miles" and "Lonesome Valley," along with an extremely powerful

rendition of "Pastures of Plenty" which concludes the first act. In a jump to

modern parallels, the Guthrie-like ballad "Deportee" recounts a plane crash

that killed 32 Mexican aliens being deported by the INS.

The guitar playing is a bit rudimentary, but then maybe Guthrie's was as well.

At any rate, the voices of the five principals are clear and appealing, and

musical director Roger Kaplan's method of building from solos to increasingly

complex arrangements is very effective and exciting to listen to. The back-up

band that uses bass, guitar, fiddle, mandolin and harmonica is a good one,

too.

My radio station, and the recent proliferation of ads for "coffee houses,"

suggests acoustic guitars and "folk music" are undergoing a renaissance these

days. I am delighted to learn this (although unfortunately some of the stuff I

hear sounds suspiciously like self-absorbed drivel): All the more reason to

respond to Woody Guthrie's mission, which was to share the songs which express

people's feelings about work, their struggles, their wars and their dreams.

Woody Guthrie's American Song is as much a sorely needed history lesson as it

is delightful entertainment. As usual, the Danbury Theater Company has aimed

high and succeeded admirably. Go see it while you have the chance.

Curtain for Woody Guthrie's American Song is Friday and Saturday at 8 pm,

Sunday at 7, through June 7. Tickets are $15, $13 for seniors. The theatre is

in St. James Church, 25 West Street. Call 790-1161 for details.