Ready for a good old fashioned hootenanny? Grab a musical instrument and mosey on over to TheaterWorks Hartford to strum and strut your stuff with some of the best fiddlers in the hollow Sundays July 21 and 28 after the fun rip roaring matinee production of “Woody Sez,” the intimate music and story of Woody Guthrie.
Being named after a President might be daunting for a baby boy, but if your moniker is Woodrow Wilson Guthrie you are able to strive for perfection and then some. Your life has to be meaningful and special, even if it means walking from one end of the country to the other. When he boasted about making a joyful noise unto the Lord, Woody did so with his treasure trove of 3000 songs, novels, short stories, poems, oil paintings, political cartoons, children’s books and sketches of everyday life. He is considered one of America’s greatest songwriters and cultural icons and you have the privilege of making his unique acquaintance at the TheaterWorks Hartford until Sunday, July 28 in “Woody Sez,” a musical portrait devised by David M. Lutken and Nick Corley, with Darcie Deaville, Helen J. Russell, and Andy Teirstein.
Woody Guthrie wrote folk tunes about his growing up years in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl, through the Great Depression, political, children's, songs of wanderlust and traveling, songs of peace and against war, social justice and even songs with a Jewish flavor. None of his verses is more well known than "This Land Is Your Land," that he penned in 1940, considered one of folk music's most famous tunes. Even that was a protest against the sentiment he heard in Irving Berlin's "God Bless America."
Sam Sherwood stars as the prosaic philosophizing guitar playing guy who was compelled to ramble across the country and write about all he saw and all the people he met along the way. Nick Corley sets his hand to directing this impassioned yet humble tale, of a man and the music he had to make.
Guthrie was a social commentator, a radical with an advocacy for truth, who believed “all you can write is all you can see.” He has been described as “a three chord picker with a poet’s brain” and his tale has been brought to dozens of cities, thanks to Sam Sherwood and his comrades on fiddle, bass, guitar, banjo, harmonica and more, Nyssa Grant, Helen J. Russell and David Finch.
Think of Woody Guthrie as an amalgam of Will Rogers and Pete Seeger, a man filled with words and sentiments which he put into poems, plays, letters, a newspaper column called "Woody Sez," song lyrics as well as novels and artwork. He suffered many tragic losses in his life as well as great happiness. They translated into his writings. As Woody says himself, "There's a feeling in music and it carries you back down the road you have traveled and makes you travel it again. Sometimes when I hear music I think back over my days - and a feeling that is fifty-fifty joy and pain swells like clouds taking all kinds of shapes in my mind.”
Some highlights include "This Train Is Bound for Glory,” “Jack Hammer Blues,” "Sinking of the Reuben James," "The Ballad of Tom Joad," "Riding In My Car," and, of course, "This Land Is Your Land."
For tickets ($35-50), call TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at twhartford.org. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m.and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The Sunday hootenanny follow.
Guthrie died at a young age, 55, from Huntington’s Disease, the same ailment that took his mother. On opening night, David Lutken introduced the volunteer head of the Huntington's Disease Society of America Susan B. McCann MSW whose husband is actively fighting the disease. Go to Connecticut.hdsa.com or call their helpline at 800-345-HDSA (4372) for support. A new Center of Excellence at UCONN Health Center for Huntington’s patients has recently been opened. This year is the 50th anniversary of its founder Woody’s wife Marjorie. It is a brain disease, transmitted from generation to generation that, due to a small error in one gene, called huntingtin, can lead to physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. It currently has no cure. A portion of the sale of David Lutken’s recordings is donated to this worthy cause.
Come meet this home spun, down home country boy named after our 28th president, with his guitar and his friends in this special and moving tribute to the Oklahoma Troubadour. They are all bound for glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment