The Grapes of Rapture: Theatricum Honors Woody Guthrie at Woodsy Gala

ECHOES IN THE FOREST: Theater Review

On August 3 Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s Echoes in the Forest gala was part pageant, half hootenanny, and all delightful. This annual event is a fundraiser for WGTB, a nonprofit amphitheater and theatrical school ensconced in arcadian Topanga Canyon, L.A. County. Since 2015, the yearly galas also bestow the Will Geer Humanitarian Award on “an individual who epitomizes and advances human welfare and social justice championed by Will… to recognize individuals who share Will’s spirit in the mission to make the world a better place,” according to the gala’s playbill. 2024’s posthumous recipient is folksinger Woody Guthrie.

This year, the festivities also marked the grand opening of The Shelter, a cabin-turned-museum on WGTB’s grounds, where Woody formerly lived. This reliquary of a hallowed segment of the Old Left features originals and replicas of Guthrie’s letters and lyrics, plus photos of Woody and other musicians, as well as stills from films featuring Will Geer and other lefty thespians. There are also videos about the Theatricum’s history and legacy as a refuge for blacklisted artists during the Red Scare.

Before the show began on the mainstage, several musical acts, including harpist Elaine Litster, Chris Wilson and Trillium regaled diners, playing in front of the Shelter, which adjoins picnic grounds where gala goers feasted on mac and cheese with lobster or truffles and slider cheeseburgers, with sweet potato fries. An open bar enhanced the merriment until around 7:30 p.m., when Willow Geer, the event’s Gardens Performance Director summoned the 200 or so theatergoers to leave their flower-bedecked picnic tables and enter Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s amphitheater, for the evening’s program.

Onstage were two podiums on the left and right for actors Wendie Malick (of TV’s Just Shoot Me!) and Dan Luria (TV’s The Wonder Years) and ditto, music stands with microphones for various musicians, including the brother-sister team of Sean and Sara Watkins. Downstage was an inspired choice to depict Woody, actor/musician Keith Carradine (who appeared in movies by Robert Altman such as 1975’s Nashville and Alan Rudolph’s 1976 Welcome to L.A.). Keith’s father, John Carradine, co-starred with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in John Ford’s 1940 screen adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, about “Oakies” who, like Woody, migrated from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression to California.

In Grapes John Carradine steals the show as a possessed preacher who no longer finds transcendental oneness in religion but rather in labor unions and tries to organize the fruit pickers in this classic that was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and scored the Best Director Academy Award for Ford. In 1976, Keith’s older brother, David Carradine, portrayed Woody in Hal Ashby’s Best Picture Oscar-nommed Bound for Glory, and the Best Cinematography Academy Award was given to Haskell Wexler (who also received the Will Geer Humanitarian Award).

The pageant-cum-hootenanny unspun with Lauria and Malick plus Carradine narrating a saga written and directed by banjo playing Ellen Geer, was frequently punctuated by musicians, with Keith, Peter Alsop, Melora Marshall, et al, mostly strumming along to some of Woody’s immortal tunes and singing his finger-licking good lyrics, such as “Hobo’s Lullaby.” They also crooned the famed song Woody wrote the lyrics for in 1940 when he was in the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger, “Union Maid,” with the lyrics: “Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union.” At various points, thesps performed in vignettes with progressive themes.

Ellen Geer, WGTB’s Producing Artistic Director, portrayed a feisty Mother Jones, the militant labor leader who led 1903’s “March of the Mill Children” to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s Long Island summer home to protest child labor and other iniquities. Speaking of presidents, Jim Beavers played President . Eisenhower and Earnestine Phillips, president of Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s board and a longtime member of WGTB’s theatrical company, doubled onstage as a singer as well as an actress, depicting Rosa Parks, who stood up by refusing to stand up and surrender her seat on a segregated bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.

Emmy Award-winner Pamela Adlon (Better Things, Californication) played a rip-roaring Bella Abzug, the fiery feminist Congressman (uh, I mean Congresswoman; or Congressmember?), as well as playwright Lillian Hellman, who refused to become an informer for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Free-spirited dancer Isadora Duncan (Lexi Pearl), waggish wit Mark Twain (Jim Beaver), poet Amanda Gorman (Constance Lopez) and Will Geer himself were also reenacted, with Tom Allard reciting some of the blacklisted Will’s testimony to HUAC.

Heartfelt speeches were delivered by Stephanie Wilson, WGTB’s Managing Director and the event coordinator, and Mikko Sperber, Vice-President of WGTB’s executive board. The highlight was the giving of the Will Geer Humanitarian Award to Damon Guthrie, who accepted the plaque on behalf of his grandfather Woody. Damon also performed a rollicking original number, “Ladder Rungs Breakin’”, which called to mind his grandfather’s rabblerousing songs, especially the final lyrics: “We just gotta get more organized!” While one could imagine Woody singing that at a migrant camp in order to inspire fruit pickers to join a union, to this reviewer’s untutored ear, the grandson actually sounded more like Arlo Guthrie—Woody’s son, Damon’s uncle – than he did his grandfather.

The night ended with, but of course, everyone onstage and the audience joining in for a rousing rendition of what some of the speakers said should be America’s national anthem, Woody’s masterpiece: “This Land is Your Land.” Damon sang solo the most political lyrics of this people’s paean:

“There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said ‘Private Property’
But on the backside, it didn’t say nothing
This land was made for you and me.”

The encore and grand finale was, but of course, Guthrie’s “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh,” which was part of Woody’s 1935 album “Dust Bowl Ballads.” At the end of the show, I shook Keith Carradine’s hand and said: “Preacher Casy Rules!” He laughed at my reference to his father’s unforgettable, moving portrayal of the martyred union organizer in Grapes. In yet another “Oakie” reference, I asked Damon Guthrie if his father, Joady Guthrie, was named after another Grapes character, Tom Joad, and he confirmed he was indeed. I also asked Damon if he was wearing a kilt, and he said it was “a utility kilt,” and added that he wore it because there is a Guthrie Castle in Angus, Scotland, which dates back to the 15th century.

A splendid time was had by all at the Echoes in the Night gala, as this jubilee was made for you and me—and for all those who love live theater and social justice, the specialty of the house.

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s repertory season is presenting Tartuffe: Born Again; The Winter’s Tale; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Wendy’s Peter Pan; and The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote at 1419 North Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California 90290. For info and tickets: 310-455-3723. On October 11, WGTB is presenting a 70^th anniversary screening of the pro-labor, pro-Latino, feminist film Salt of the Earth that co-starred Will Geer.