BWW Reviews: WOODY SEZ: THE LIFE & MUSIC OF WOODY GUTHRIE at Dupont Underground

There’s a scene in the 1984 heavy metal mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap in which a limo driver fruitlessly tries to educate the comically uncultured members of the once successful band Spinal Tap on the life of Frank Sinatra. Frustrated by their disinterest, he says, “People like this… they get all they want so they don’t really understand about a life like Frank’s… When you’ve loved and lost like Frank has…” The driver’s takeaway is clear: easy lives produce shallow art, hard lives produce greatness. 

It’s a somewhat hokey notion that feels in keeping with the 1980s and a simpler relationship with celebrity — a relationship that produced aggrandizing biopics like 1982’s Gandhi, films that revel in the struggles and buff out the blemishes of great men of history. 

That same notion winds its way throughout Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie, directed by Georgette Verdin, which currently plays in the unique and strange locale of the abandoned street car platform that is now the Dupont Underground art and performance space. 

Woody Sez is an interesting showpiece that weaves together over thirty of Guthrie’s folk songs to tell the story of his life. Guthrie lived a unique life, no doubt, experiencing countless personal tragedies while traveling throughout the country, writing and performing politically charged music that celebrated common people and attacked politicians, capitalists, and fascists. 

In Woody Sez, he’s painted as a Christ-like figure — born to ordinary folk, blessed with prodigious talent, setting off to travel the country and be among the poor and sick, preaching peace and love, talking truth to power, and becoming a thorn in the side of the establishment. 

It’s a fairly simplistic take on Guthrie as a person, one in which Guthrie’s merits are endless and his flaws superficial, one that won’t challenge any preconceptions or complicate his legacy, and ultimately one in which Guthrie is less of a person and more like the idea of one. Guthrie’s life also doesn’t seem to be the most fitting platform for his music. Guthrie’s music told the story of the people and land around him much more so than it ever focused inwardly on his own. 

The other hokey notion pervading Woody Sez is its full-hearted belief in the power of art to bring about change in the world. The work itself goes on at length about the strength of Guthrie’s message and its very real threat to the status quo, while the production’s program has the usual notes about how in these challenging times such art is needed more than ever. Guthrie’s music has had an enormous, staying impact on our culture, but it’s hard to look around today and argue that his politics and message haven’t taken defeat after defeat, and those difficult and complex truths and realities feel like something that must be grappled with more. 

The real strength of Woody Sez is not in the life, but in the music of Woody Guthrie. Guthrie is performed by David M. Lutken, who also devised and music directs the work. Raquel Chavez, Margaret Dudasik, and Hubby Jenkins make up the rest of the cast and play an enormous variety of characters from Guthrie’s life. All four sing and accompany themselves on a tremendous amount of folk music instruments, including guitars and basses and fiddles and harmonicas and even musical spoons. 

The cast is absolutely phenomenal. Lutken is often somehow more Guthrie than Guthrie and the sheer energy of his non-stop, two-hour tour de force is astounding. All four of them are exceptional on each instrument they play, harmonizing with each other effortlessly, and jumping in and out of dozens of songs without skipping a beat. 

And there’s the added bonus of the vast, if lopsided, acoustics of the Dupont Underground, which lacks onsite restrooms but boasts plenty of the most powerful reverb you’ll hear in DC. Scenic designer Andrew Boyce has really transformed the barren space into something inviting, and full of life, backing the stage with warm wood and surrounding it with a scaffolding and Guthrie’s protest art. 

In the end, while the message of Woody Sez may not ring as strongly as it could have, it is hard to overstate: Woody Guthrie’s music has never sounded better. As a concert tribute to Guthrie and folk music, there is simply nothing like it. 

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.