Studs Terkel's Working

Anyone who's ever had the opportunity to hear Studs Terkel (I was honored to meet him at ALA's Video Round Table Gala in Chicago in 2000) knows that the 89-year-old author and talk radio legend is a natural-born storyteller with a golden ear. In Working (1974), one of Terkel's nine books of oral history, the author created one of his best known (and often challenged in school libraries) works of "bottom-up history...[interviews with] ordinary people who have something real to say about themselves." In this 1982 American Playhouse production, Terkel's interviews are shaped into a blue and white collar musical, with mixed results. Barry Bostwick, Rita Moreno, James Taylor, Eileen Brennan, Patti LaBelle, Scatman Crothers, Charles Durning, Barbara Hershey, and Terkel himself, head up the stellar cast in Stephen Schwarz's filmed stage adaptation. Waitress, trucker, receptionist, grocery check-out clerk, factory laborer, teacher--the jobs and the details vary, but the messages are universal: "Jobs are not big enough for people." "I give service; I'm not servile--there is a difference." "Everybody should have something to point to." With the exception of a few standout tunes (such as James Taylor's ode to trucking), the songs and singing are so-so, at best, and the plot-less structure makes the program length and ending somewhat arbitrary. Still, there is much to like here, so consider this a strong optional purchase. Other recent releases from Image in the Broadway Theatre Archive series include: Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, Jean Anouilh's Antigone, and three Eugene O'Neill classics--Ah, Wilderness!, The Iceman Cometh (the legendary 1960 Jason Robards version) and Mourning Becomes Electra. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)