Woo dy Guthrie’s American Song
songs and w ritings by Woody Guthri e
c o nc eiv ed a nd adapted by Pete r Glaze r
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WGAS 2019 (5) .docx
CASTING and CONCEPT
This is an ensemble musical theater piece, adapted from Woody Guthrie’s writings and music, created for f ive actor/singers and a three piece band. Different numbers and combinations of actors and instrumentalists have been used over time with success, thou gh t his is the version the author prefers, and how the show was originally conceived. The actors play a variety of roles, and their through-lines are intentional, but may be adjusted based on each actor’s suitability for different characters, songs, and instruments. A range of instrumental and musical skills can be taken advantage of. In addition, the line between the “band” and the “cast” can be a soft one. People cast primarily as musicians can also be actors in scenes, sometimes as indicated in the script, and vice versa. An ethnically and racially diverse ensemble should be a priority. Woody’s first person voice is taken on by different actors at different times throughout the play, and sometimes by everyone, but this is not a biography, strictly speaking. The play is meant to give the audience a sense of the nation, and its struggles, as seen through a very particular set of eyes.
MEN’S ROLES:
First Young Man (FYM) - SEARCHER, CISCO (guitarist preferred), baritone
Second Young Man (SYM) - FOLKSINGER, HOBO BOY (guitarist preferred), tenor Man (M) - WRITER, DAD, CRIPPLE WHITEY, bass
WOMEN’S ROLES:
Woman (W) - MAMA, SALOON SINGER, HOBO WOMAN, mezzo-soprano
Young Woman (YW) - DAUGHTER, HOBO GIRL, BOWERY GIRL (simple guitar skills preferred), soprano
The vocal style of this musical is much more in the folk/pop/rock/blues/gospel styles than it is legit musical theater. Clapping on 1 and 3 is discouraged, if not illegal.
MUSICIANS 3 to 5 players. The show is scored for three musicians, who cover guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, acoustic bass, and possibly some piano. Over the years, other instruments used have included include dobro, dulcimer, mandocello, whistle, musical saw, etc. The musical director has flexibility, based on taste and the talents of the ensemble.
Time and Place: America in the 1930s and 1940s and today.
“These songs will echo [. . .] till the world looks level – till the world is level – and there ain’t no rich men, and there ain’t no poor men, and every man on earth is at work and his family is living as human beings instead of like a nest of rats.”
Woody Guthrie quoted in the collection
Pastures of Plenty: A Self-Portrait, p. 6
SCENES AND SONGS
(The stage directions include numbers and letters used in the musical score.)
ACT I
Scene One: Prologue
“Storm of Words”………………………………………………………Company HARD TRAVELIN’ ……………………………………………………Company
“The People I Owe”.…………………………………………………….Company
Scene Two: On the Plains -- Early 1930s SO LONG, IT’S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YUH……………….FYM and Band OKLAHOMA HILLS…………………………………………….FYM and Band DUST STORM DISASTER…………………………………….………..….FYM
I AIN’T GOT NO HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE……….…..….W, YW
Scene Three: A Train Heading West BOUND FOR GLORY…………………………………………….……Company DUST BOWL REFUGEE..……………………………………..FYM, SYM, YW
Scene Four: The California Line DO RE MI……………………………………………………………….Company
Scene Five: The Jungle Camp WORRIED MAN…………………………………………………………..YW, W AIN’T GONNA BE TREATED THIS WAY……………………………Company END OF MY LINE...…………………………………………………………….M GRAND COULEE DAM.………………………………………..W and Company PASTURES OF PLENTY……………………………………………….Company
ACT II
Scene One: Prologue
LUDLOW MASSACRE ……….………………………………………….YW, W LUDLOW BREAKDOWN…………….…………………………………….Band
Scene Two: New York City, Middle 1940s
NEW YORK TOWN…………………………………………………..FYM, SYM HARD, AIN’T IT HARD…….………………………………….……………….W
I DON’T FEEL AT HOME ON THE BOWERY NO MORE……….FYM, SYM
TALKIN’ SUBWAY…………………………………………………………SYM
JOLLY BANKER……………………………………………………..FYM, SYM
UNION MAID...……………………………………………W, YW and Company
THE SINKING OF THE REUBEN JAMES………...…………..W and Company
NINE HUNDRED MILES…………………….…………...….M, SYM and FYM DEPORTEE (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)………………...……YW and Company
BETTER WORLD/LONESOME VALLEY……………...……..M and Company
Scene Three: Epilogue
“Your Word Singer”………………………………………………...…...Company
ANOTHER MAN DONE GONE………………………………………………..M THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND…………………………………………..Company
ACT I
Scene One: Prologue
(When the audience enters the theatre, the stage is bare of furniture but covered in writing. Woody’s hand, his labor, is evident everywhe re -- lyrics, sketche s, typing, splashes of color from his notebooks -- the textures and work of the writer/artist One sentence, among many, might take focus: “If you walk across my camera, I will teach the world your story, I will pay you more than money ” The stage is backed by a cyclorama that might also hold patches of text. Projections might be used throughout the show, to provide a documentary context for the material and/or create scenic backdrop s for the different locales. An old Gibson guitar rests somewhe re amidst the embracing jumble of words In the musician’s area – in full view and adjacent to the main playing space – a large array of instruments are r eady for action: guitars, banjos, mandolins, a fiddle and an upright bass To begin the show, the house lights and stage preset fade, while a light glows on the guitar and selected swatches of text The guitar holds in light for a moment, then the stage fades to black
We hear the plaintive sound of a fiddle or dobro -- an instrument with the ability to haunt and moan. (“Storm of Words” [#1]) It plays a mid-tempo tune, perhaps an old fiddle tune, something in a minor key, gritty, perhaps with some dissonance It might evoke the human voice. Smokey lights rise as the musician moves into the playing space to center As they do, the cast members arrive at the circumfer ence of the stage, down stage left and right, upstage left and right and up center Some might enter through the audience, depending on the configuration of the theater.)
MUSICIAN
Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma in 1912. He wrote every word and every song you’ll hear tonight, or just about as close as makes no difference He was a folksinger
(They actors begin to speak lines that their characters will deliver later in the play, accompanied by the musician One starts and they add on in succes sion, soon overlapping, until quickly the five voices make “a storm of words ” As they begin to speak, an image of Woody Guthrie might appear upstage, not one of the many heroic/poetic images, but something more straightforwa rd, candid, unfamiliar, real.
The length of the following speeches is so mewhat arbitrary; it will depend on how long the whole overlapping text section lasts, which shouldn’t be more than about a minute )
FIRST YOUNG MAN
My folks was what you might call goers, settlers, frontier openers (YOUNG WOMAN begins her speech, see below.) My dad was born in the sands of Texas down in a boundary line called Bell County, under the shadows of a short hair cotton stalk He come up to the Indian free lands called Oklahoma and he found my Mama, born
YOUNG WOMAN
The land changed from a farming country into a weather-beaten, crumbling and wasted stretch, (The SECOND YOUNG MAN begins speaking ) with gully washes traveling in every way, brownish, hot rocks piled into canyons, and low humps topped with irony weeds and long eared rabbits loping like army mules to get away from the train. The hills were deep bright colors, reddish sand, yellow clays, and always, to the distance, there stood up the high, flattop cliffs, breaking again into the washing, windy face of the desert…
SECOND YOUNG MAN
The word had scattered out that twenty-five hundred workers was needed to build the Kenneth Dam, and already eight thousand work hands had come to do the job (WOMAN begins her speech.) Redding was like a wild ant den A mile to the north in a railroad bend had sprung up another camp, a thriving nest of two thousand people, which was called by the name of the “jungle” In that summer of 1938, 1 learned a few little things about the folks in Redding, but a whole lot more, some way, down there by that big…
WOMAN
You’ve seen a million people like us already. (The MAN starts; the overlapping speeches are building to a textured cacophony ) Maybe you saw us down the crowded side of your big city; the back side, that’s jammed and packed, the hard section to drive through. Maybe you wondered where so many of us came from, how we eat, stay alive, what good we do, what makes us live like this? We’ve had a house and a home just about like your own, settled down and had a job of work just about like you. Then something hit us and we lost all of that. We’ve been pushed out onto the high lonesome highway…
MAN
The ballad singer is a mystery to everybody except maybe his own self He sings around at strikes, on picket lines, or workers’ meets, picnics, rallies and at big banquets, and the very next time you see him he is out walking along with his old penny pencil and his sweaty nickel tablet again. 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…
(As they each speak, they move to center and converge on the musician. As they gather, the SECOND YOUNG MAN moves
from speaking to singing, and begins to vocalize a melody that will eventually emerge as HARD TRAVELIN’ [“Storm of Words” #1, Letter H]. His voice takes over the music from the fiddle, and rises above the overlapping texts. The musician leaves the group and returns to the band, and the other actors gradually join in the singing, responding to the SECOND YOUNG MAN, improvising a vocal intro without words. The FIRST YOUNG MAN begins to intone:“I have heard a storm of words…” Cued by the band, the loose intro coalesces into a strong a capella chorus of HARD TRAVELIN’ [“Storm of Words” #1, Letter I], in a gospel-like style with rich harmonies and a clearly stated rhythm underneath )
ALL
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, WAY DOWN THE ROAD
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, HARD DRINKIN’, HARD GAMBLIN’, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD MAN
I think back through my life to everybody that I owe, I mean the ones I can remember in person. Of course, I know that I owe these folks, and that they owe some other people. But the amount that we owe is all that we have. And the only way that I could ever pay back all of you good walkers and talkers was to work.
YOUNG WOMAN
My work in these days is mainly writing I write songs, ballads, stories with tunes, tales with no melody, wild lines with free beats and freer rhythms. Some of these rhythms alone are as pretty as the paint on your tractor, the oil on your wheel.
SECOND YOUNG MAN
You may have been taught to call me by the name of a poet, but I am no more of a poet than you are, no better singer I never did learn enough to read the notes of music, nor learned many of the laws of high language. But I did keep my eyes on you, and kept my ears open when you come close to me.
FIRST YOUNG MAN
I remember your face just as it was when I saw you. I hear your voice in its own loose words like it spoke when I heard it I have heard a storm of words in me, but I know that these words are not my own private property.
WOMAN
I borrowed them from you, the people I owe I borrowed words from you the same as I walked through the high winds and borrowed enough air to keep me moving. I borrowed my life from the works of your lives Your works and my works hold hands, and our memories never will separate.
(The WOMAN starts to sing a line from HARD TRAVELIN’ [#2] a capella, and the others join, building to a tempo change.)
WOMAN and COMPANY
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, HARD DRINKIN’, HARD GAMBLIN’, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD
(The stage lights build as the band joins in, kicking up the tempo The song takes off )
YOUNG WOMAN
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD HARVESTIN’, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, FROM NORTH DAKOTA TO KANSAS CITY, WAY DOWN THE ROAD, BEEN A-CUTTIN’ THE WHEAT AND A-STACKIN’ THE HAY, JUST TO MAKE ABOUT A DOLLA R A DAY, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
SECOND YOUNG MAN
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD ROCK MININ’, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, I’VE BEEN LEANIN’ ON A PRESSURE DRILL, WAY DOWN THE ROAD, WELL THE HAMMER FLYING AND THE AIR HOSE SUCKIN’, SIX FEET OF MUD AND I SURE BEEN A MUCKIN’, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
MAN
I’VE BEEN LAYIN’ IN A HARD ROCK JAIL, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, I’VE BEEN LAYIN’ OUT NINETY DAYS, WAY DOWN THE ROAD, WELL, THE DARNED OLD JUDGE HE SAID TO ME “IT’S NINETY DAYS FOR VAGRANCY,” AND I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
FIRST YOUNG MAN
I’VE BEEN RIDIN’ THEM FAST PASSENGERS, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, I’VE BEEN HITTIN’ THEM FLAT WHEELERS, WAY DOWN THE ROAD, I’VE BEEN RIDIN’ THEM FAST PASSENGERS, DEAD ENDERS, PICKIN’ UP CINDERS, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’ LORD
(Instrumental s olos)
WOMAN
WELL, I’VE BEEN WALKIN’ THAT LINCOLN HIGHWAY, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, I BEEN HITTIN’ THAT 66, WAY DOWN THE ROAD,
GOT A HEAVY LOAD AND A WORRIED MIND, I’M LOOKIN’ FOR SOMETHIN’ THAT’S HARD TO FIND, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
ALL
I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, I THOUGHT YOU KNOWED, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, WAY DOWN THE ROAD, I BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, HARD DRINKIN’, HARD GAMBLIN’, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
I BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD RAMBLIN’, HARD DRINKIN’, HARD GAMBLIN’, I’VE BEEN DOIN’ SOME HARD TRAVELIN’, LORD.
(After the applause, the MAN picks up the Gibson guitar and begins a verse of OKLAHOMA HILLS [“Page of My Life” #3]. The oldest and most weathered member of the cast, he represents an author in the last part of his life, whose memories and work s we are about to explore. He will take this character on in earnest at the end of the play as THE WRITER. At certain moments in the piece, the MAN will be a reference for the audience as a focus for memory and reflection Partway through this verse, the FIRST YOUNG MAN steps in as the youngest incarnation of the author figure They trade places as the song takes us into the past )
MAN
MANY A YEAR HAS COME AND GONE SINCE I WANDERED FROM MY HOME IN THOSE OKLAHOMA HILLS WHERE I WAS BORN
(The FIRST YOUNG MAN steps up.)
FIRST YOUNG MAN and MAN (COMPANY ‘oohs’)
MANY A PAGE OF MY LIFE HAS TURNED MANY A LESSON HAS BEEN LEARNED
(The MAN steps back and joins the COMPANY )
FIRST YOUNG MAN with COMPANY AND I FEEL LIKE IN THEM HILLS I STILL BELONG
(The MAN hands the FIRST YOUNG MAN the guitar. From this time on, this guitar will most always be in the hands of the actor narrating as the author, or Woody Guthrie.)
Scene Three: A Train Heading West
(As the SEARCHER moves upstage, the rest of the cast enter as railroad hoboes, now inhabiting the interior of a boxcar. Underscoring has begun, with the driving rhythm of a train barreling across the west Everyone is jammed into the boxcar: the HOBO (SYM) and HOBO GIRL (YW) are brother and sister; the HOBO WOMAN (W) and CRIPPLE WHITEY (M) travel alone.)
SEARCHER (FYM)
I could see folks of all colors bouncing along in the boxcar We stood up We laid down We piled around on each other. I could smell the sour and bitter sweat soaking through my own khaki shirt and britches, the work clothes, overhauls and saggy, dirty suits of the other folks
My mouth was full of some kind of grey mineral dust that was about an inch thick all over the floor
HOBO WOMAN (W)
We look like a gang of lost corpses heading back to the bone yard
HOBO (SYM)
Hot in the September heat...
mean and mad...
cussin’ and sweatin’
HOBO GIRL (YW)
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
HOBO (SYM) ravin’ and preachin’!
SEARCHER (FYM)
The train was a highball and had the right of way. Our car was a rough rider, a flat wheeler. The wheels were clipping it off at sixty miles an hour.
(The SEARCHER starts singing BOUND FOR GLORY [#8 B]. The others, wary at first, join in as the song progresse s.)
SEARCHER (FYM)
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS, LIARS, THIEVES OR BIG SHOT RAMBLERS, THIS TRAIN SHE’S BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN
(Leading them through it )
SEARCHER (FYM)
(others join in, learning the song) THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO GAMBLERS, LIARS, THIEVES OR BIG SHOT RAMBLERS, THIS TRAIN SHE’S BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN
(Music continues )
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
We would have to get the only goddam flat wheeler on the train.
SEARCHER (FYM)
Beats walking…bother you for my guitar handle ta stick up here in yer face?
HOBO (SYM)
Naw, just as long as yuh keep up the music. Kinda songs ya sing? Juke box stuff?
SEARCHER (FYM)
No When I do that drugstore lemonade music, I just open up my mouth and nothing comes out.
HOBO (SYM)
Littl e too sissy? Wise-cracky, huh?
SEARCHER (FYM)
Hell yes. Takes more ’n a dam bunch of wisecracks to win any kind of war. Takes work.
HOBO (SYM)
You don’t look like you ever broke your back at no work, bud.
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
You boys talkin’ about the war?
SEARCHER (FYM)
(To the HOBO)
By God, mister, I work just as hard as you or the next guy, and I got the blisters to prove it.
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
I got a feelin’ you’re gonna see a little spell of war right here in just a few minutes
Makes you think so?
SEARCHER (FYM)
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
They call me Cripple Whitey, the Fight Spotter. I can spot a fist fight on the streets three blocks before I come to it. I can spot a gang fight an hour before it breaks out. I tip off the boys They know how to lay their bets
SEARCHER (FYM)
You got a fight spotted now?
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
I smell a big one. One hell of a big one! Be some blood spilt. Be a few minutes yet.
SEARCHER (FYM)
(To HOBO GIRL, who’s frightened by WHITEY.) Aw, don’t pay no ’tention to that drunken rat. He’s just full of it.
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
(Trying to provoke THE SEARCHER.)
You’re a goddam rat. Get up! I’ll cave your lousy dam head in! I’ll throw you into one of those lakes!
(The SEARCHER moves away to the door of the car WHITEY uses the song lyrics to challenge him.)
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO LIARS, THIS TRAIN ALL
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO LIARS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO LIARS, CRIPPLE WHITEY (M) SHE’S STREAMLINED AND A MIDNIGHT FLIER ALL
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO LIARS, THIS TRAIN
SEARCHER (FYM)
I set down by the door looking all through the troubled, tangled, messed up folks, hitting the long old lonesome go. A crazy boxcar on a wild track. Headed sixty miles an hour in a big cloud of poison dust due straight to nowhere.
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
Be a hell of a thing if a feller was ta get knocked outta this dern boxcar goin’ this pace, wouldn’t it? Roll a week!
SEARCHER (FYM)
Hey! Look! Trains slowin’ down ta make a switch.
(WHITEY gets up and confronts the SEARCHER )
CRIPPLE WHITEY (M)
I been lookin’ for you, mister music maker! I think I’ll just boot yez offa dis train!
(WHITEY shoves him out the end of the car The HOBO pushes WHITEY to the floor. The SEARCHER moves downstage )
SEARCHER (FYM)
He kicked me out the door. I lit running with my feet on the cinders, and made a run for the door of the same boxcar again. Slowing down, the train jammed its air brakes and jarred everyone in the boxcar off his feet. I was giving up all hopes of getting back, when I saw the iron ladder on the end of the car. I got a running start on the cinders, swung onto the ladder and went over the top.
(Music and the next set of lyrics undersco re the action, as the SEARCHER moves to a position that represent s the top of the boxcar.)
ALL
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO CON MEN, THIS TRAIN
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO CON MEN, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO CON MEN, NO WHEELER DEALERS, HERE AND GONE MEN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO CON MEN, THIS TRAIN
SEARCHER (FYM)
I looked ahead at the black smoke rolling out of the engine. It boiled and turned and spun into all kinds of shapes The wind whistled funeral songs for the railroad riders Lightning struck and crackled. The flash knocked the clouds full of holes and rain hit down hard. I was whirling and floating, and my brain felt like a pot of hot lead bubbling over a flame.
ALL
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO RUSTLERS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO RUSTLERS, THIS TRAIN (The SEARCHER begins his next speech here, over the singing.)
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO RUSTLERS, SIDE-STREET WALKERS, TWO BIT RUSTLERS, THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO RUSTLERS, THIS TRAIN
SEARCHER (FYM)
Through the roof, down inside the car, I heard the voices of the hoboes Who’s all of these crazy men down there? How come them here? How the hell come me here?
ALL
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO SMOKERS, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO SMOKERS, THIS TRAIN (There’s another lightning flash. The SEARCHER begins his next speech, again over the singing.)
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO SMOKERS, OOH, AAH
THIS TRAIN DON’T CARRY NO SMOKERS, THIS TRAIN
SEARCHER (FYM)
Strike lightning, strike. Strike, goddam you, strike! See if I care. Roar and tumble, twist and turn, the sky ain’t never crazy as the world.
ALL
THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, DON’T CARRY NOTHING BUT THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE HOLY, THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN THIS TRAIN
SEARCHER (FYM)
(Again overlapping the music )
Bound for glory, this train? Ha! Rain on, little rain, rain on! Blow on, little wind, keep blowin’!’Cause them guys is a singin’ that this train is bound for glory, and I’m gonna hug her breast’ til I found out where she’s bound.
ALL
THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, DON’T CARRY NOTHIN’ BUT THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE HOLY, THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY, THIS TRAIN!
(The song ends with a crash of thunder and a flash of lightnin’.)
