Labors of Love
Once upon a time, before it became a “Rust Belt City”, Buffalo was a “Blue Collar Town.” Almost by definition, a place had to be the former before it could become the latter.
Although “white collar” workers have long ago eclipsed its number of “blue collar” workers, Buffalo is still known as a blue collar town, with its penchant for sports, beer, and what remains of the ever dwindling manufacturing jobs in steel, autos and tires. Even the endangered 4 a.m. “last call” in our local bars is a testament to the graveyard shift workers, who’d stop by their local gin mill for a sandwich and a beer before heading home for a few hours of sleep.
As local unemployment currently hovers around the 10% mark, it is altogether fitting that two local theatres celebrate labor in two very different, but philosophically related productions.
The Furies of Mother Jones by Maxine Klein, plays at the Subversive Theatre, while Working: A Musical, by Stephen Schwatrz and Nina Faso adapted from the work of Studs Terkel, opened at O’Connell and Company.
Both shows originated in the late 1970s. Mother Jones first opened in 1977, Working in 1978. They both have a ’70’s vibe. Mother Jones has that underdog, anti-establishment appeal which fueled the anti-war movement. A bit doctrinaire in its presentation, it deals with the worst abuses of the formative labor organizing years, when the actual Mother Jones made her bones.
The story of Mother Jones is accompanied by the music of The Erie Lackawanna Railroad Band. It is pitch perfect music for this production, mixing traditional bluegrass mountain music with original songs written for the play. This infectious music turns on a dime, celebrating life’s little victories and the virtues of the working poor while underscoring the tragedy which lurks around every descent into the mines or with every thunderstorm that threatens to wash away all life hanging onto the stressed sides of the strip mined hills.
The Furies of Mother Jones focuses on the story of Mary Harris, born in Cork, Ireland circa 1830, just at the dawn of the industrial revolution. She emigrated to the USA where her personal misfortunes caused her to take up the cause of Union Labor. She became a fierce proponent of unionism, a virtual lion of the United Mine Workers, who bestowed upon her the reverential title of “Mother”, and she rode on the crest of labor organizing until her death at the century mark in 1930.
The recent and tragic deaths of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig workers in the Gulf of Mexico and the 25 miners killed in Massey Mine explosion in West Virginia are stark reminders that corporate greed still trumps the safety of workers, even in the 21st century. That such horrors are much less common now days is a tribute to the organizing skills of Mother Jones and the other pioneers of labor, who saw these kinds of abuses on a daily basis.
My own grandfather, born in 1875, worked as a child in the coal mines of northwest Pennsylvania, where a ten-year-old could climb into shafts too narrow for an adult, or whose nimble hands could sort out the coal on a conveyor, until the belt harvested a small arm or a hand. My grandfather was literally smuggled out of his town and across the border to New York, to escape the “Company Store”, which held his family in bondage to the coal company. Many a family in this region, especially those of Irish descent, will remember such hardship in their marrow. For some, the name Andrew Carnegie does not conjure up the image of a music hall, rather it is the image of the strikers shot in cold blood who will haunt the steel baron’s memory.
The irrepressible Sharon Strait plays the title role of Mother Jones with great aplomb. Her lilting brogue and charming smile belie the dead serious work Mother Jones undertook, the spells in jail and the terrifying confrontation with the armed goons who tried to crush the unions. While the production can take on the proselytizing quality of Red Chinese Theatre, Ms. Strait keeps it honest, and always brings the story back around to the main point: this was a war. Only the strength of workers united in the union could win that war.
The play deftly shifts time from the earliest days of labor organizing to modern times in order to maintain the continuum of the struggle. Cold history is humanized with the plight of coal mining families who struggle with the mundane, such as how to clothe one’s child for the first day of school, and who struggle with the monumental, such as the murder of UMW candidate Jock Jablonksi and his family.
The story also addresses the environmental impact that the land suffered under the hand of callous industrialists, a very 70’s, “Earth Day” concept , but a concept which again has been serendipitously reinforced by the events of the oil spill in the Gulf. Actress Leah Russo takes the lead on this end, playing a woman fighting to preserve her family’s mountain home from the mining company which holds the local government, the sheriff and the courts like so many cards in a stacked deck. Ms. Russo has a beautiful voice and when joined by Tilke Hill, Hanna Lipkind, and Elizabeth Oddy, they offer up a harmonious and soulful defense of hearth and home.
Marshall Maxwell recreates the stoic role of organizer Diller Owen, which Mr. Maxwell played in a revival of Mothrer Jones in the early 1980s. The other men, despite being mostly youngins’, play their parts with a contagious fervor. In addition to Mr. Maxwell, Eric Mowery, Tim Stuff and Hasheen DeBerry are also members of the Subversive Theatre Collective who offer up solid work. Leon Copeland deserves special mention for his speech as the elder Mr. Firman, who, at wit’s end, pleads for the very survival of his destitute family. Other actors, including M. Joseph Fratello, Travis Hedland, Byran Figueroa round out the cast of miners, thugs and lawmen who bring the story to life.
With great stage presence, young Justine Rodriguez plays Lisa Black, a proud, inquisitive child who represents the promise of a brighter future.
Megan Callahan is a gifted director, who employs every inch of the small stage to its best advantage. The production sprawls over time, but does not sprawl the real time itself, she keeps things moving, with energetic music, focused performers and a climactic scene in the mines which brings it all home. Furiously well done.
The Furies of Mother Jones was sold out the night I saw it, so you may want to check seat availability ahead of time.
Working: A Musical, now playing at O’Connell & Company, has a more “feel-good ” tenor. It’s a series of stories which, while still aware of the indignities which can be heaped upon the working class, are more attuned to the dignity of an honest day’s work. The music is much more “Godspell” than “Das International.” You will undoubtedly recognize some of the songs–those by James Taylor, for example–which are so clearly his, that you will know them as such even if you have never heard them before.
Opening O’Connell’s second season in Gleasnor Hall at ECC North, Working features a big cast with big voices, and that is all the better to fill what is a very big theatre. The musical is based upon the book WORKING by Studs Terkel, beloved Chicago radio personality and Pultizer Prize winning author, whose oral histories of the common people who lived through the Great Depression and WWII set the standard for American mid-century anthropological history.
Working picks up that thread post-war, and gives us an insight into the trials and triumphs of ordinary American workers as they go about their lives in an ever more demanding modern society.
That’s quite a chop-full, but in essence, Terkel put his finger on what made America great, what the social dynamics were that allowed the USA to become the world’s sole “s
uperpower” by the end of the 20th Century, and perhaps, with the current decline of the working class, where the seeds of our own national decline may lie.
There has been a great deal of change in the thirty years since Working debuted, and some of the material has been updated, notable in the references to e-mails, for instance, which is a dead give-away. (Remember 1978 was a time without computers, CDs, iPods, universal price code scanners, and only primitive microwaves. How did we survive?)
The original music has been largely retained here, and the aforementioned ’70’s vibe lives on in the opening anthem , author Stephen Schwatrz’s “All the Livelong Day (I hear America Singing)”, which is based on the poetry of Walt Whitman. It has a catchy “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” thing that can’t help but grab you. Other notable ensemble pieces include James Taylor’s “Traffic Jam” (a new addition) and his “Brother Trucker”, which features the excellent Michael Izard Cubicle and Todd Fuller.
Victoria Perez reminds us just who picks your lettuce in “Une Mejor Dia Vendra”, something all those folks complaining about illegal aliens might keep in mind the next time they’re grazing at the salad bar. Another highlight was Pamela Rose Mangus singing “Millwork,” which was haunting and beautiful, and also written by James Taylor.
Other standout characters who inhabit our everyday world are the perky waitress, (“It’s an Art”) with an energetic Mary Coppola Gjurich. A supermarket checker, Lisa Dee, and Susana Breese is “Just a Housewife.” Erin Brigone appears as a worldly-wise young hooker, (well, maybe they’re not all in our everyday world.)
Gregory Gjurich sings a very touching “Father and Sons.” Roger Van Dette is a weary teacher singing a heartfelt “Nobody Tells Me How” by Mary Rogers. Dudney Joseph is an ambitious parking lot attendant, and Guy Tomassi and Marc-Jon Fillipone sing a wonderful and thoughtful number in “The Mason.” Mr. Tomassi also makes a terrifically smarmy corporate executive.
Ron Swick plays a very lively piano and Veronica Irene’s choreography works well.
Seemingly simple on the surface, these are songs which will hold on to you for days, maybe weeks afterwards. If you’ve never seen Working, give it a chance, and if you have seen it years ago, come back and listen again. In Studs Terkel’s tales and Stephen Schwartz’s songs you may see your grandparents, or your parents, your aunts and uncles. You may even see yourself.
You would do well to see both these plays, which pay tribute to Buffalo’s blue collar past and present.
The Furies of Mother Jones, by Maxine Klein, directed by Megan Callahan, for the Subversive Theatre Collective, presented at the Manny Fried Playhouse through October 9th.
Working: A Musical, based on the book by Studs Terkel, adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso, directed by Mary Kate O’Connell for O’Connell & Company at Gleasner Hall, ECC North, through October 3rd.
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Images courtesy of O’Connell & Company and Subversive Theatre Collective.
Neil Garvey,
attorney/actor/writer, is a native East Auroran and 30 year resident of
Buffalo’s Elmwood neighborhood. Long involved in the cultural &
civic life of Buffalo, he has served on several theaters & civic
boards, including the Delaware Park Steering Committee. The first board
chair of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, he served as the company’s first
CEO and appeared in or produced some 25 Shakespeare plays. Stage credits
include Shea’s, Studio Arena, The Kavinoky, The Irish Classical, Road
Less Traveled, and played Santa Claus for the BPO Holiday Pops for the
past eight seasons.