Will Kaufman – Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travelin’

Bridport Arts Centre

The danger of performing the same show regularly over a three year period is that it becomes stale; that the audience senses that it is being performed ‘by rote’ and that the essential je ne sais quoi is missing.

This is not something that Will Kaufman could be accused of.

Using carefully chosen songs of the period - mostly but not exclusively Woody Guthrie songs – interspaced with American history as it affected Woody from his birth in Oklahoma in 1912 till his death in New York in 1967, Kaufman traced the period that still shapes America today.

We learnt of the Dust Bowl which started Guthrie’s travelling and his politicisation as he experienced, with thousands of others, years of deprivation and abuse throughout the depression that followed.

We also learnt that Guthrie ‘created’ many versions of his history! Although he constantly fought authority Guthrie largely escaped punishment from the establishment – eventually they decided to stop watching him as Huntington's disease - which eventually killed him – stopped his ability to communicate.

The closing song (ignoring an encore of a Steve Earle tribute song) was Guthrie’s most famous, with the original, anti-establishment, verses included. ‘This Land is Your Land’ has become a second National Anthem in America, but sadly Guthrie never benefitted from its success as he succumbed to Huntington's.

Throughout an entertaining night at the newly refurbished Bridport Arts Centre, Kaufman’s love of his subject-matter shone through. As a professor of American Literature and Culture at The University of Central Lancashire, Kaufman’s knowledge was not in doubt, but his passion for Woody Guthrie ensured that his enthusiasm was shared by all by the close.

NEIL HARVEY