George and Ruth, Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War

 

George and Ruth, Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War

By Dan and Molly Lynn Watt

Educational Alternatives

175 Richdale Avenue #315

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140-3352

REVIEW BY WENDELL SMITH

Dan and Molly Lynn Watt have been performing George and Ruth, Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War for over two decades and, given how the news these days is filled with one or another government leader or leading candidate flirting with fascism, it has become a timely and thought provoking entertainment and we should thank them for publishing the play. The text for this two act play is the correspondence between Dan Watt’s father, 23 year old George Watt, and his wife of less than a year, Ruth, which occurs while George is fighting the fascists of Francisco Franco with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War, and Ruth is working as an organizer for the American Student Union in New York supporting the International Brigades and other leftist causes.

These are love letters of youthful longings interrupted by the political chaos of the 1930s as the world warmed up for WWII,

George, do you realize we have a celebration coming soon? Our first anniversary! Remember? So just imagine when you go to sleep, I say, push over. And I crawl in next to you and you say, brr you're cold. And I say, my, you're lovely and warm. Later, you're dying to go to sleep. But I won't let you because of the way I keep kissing the corner of your eye, and rubbing my nose in your cheek, and fiddling with your hair and murmuring silly things. And then you just turn around and go to sleep. And even then, I rub my face in your back and am so happy, I fall asleep too.

The metaphors of George’s sensuality were shaped by that chaos:

I wasn't issued a rifle instead I have the special honor of being a machine gunner for our section. And boy how I love that gun I got it last night took it apart and put it together a dozen times.

At present we are deciding on a name for the gun. But whatever it is called, i shall secretly name it after you, baby Ruth. And you'd be surprised it has many similarities to you. It's beautiful, a little awkward in spots, a little heavy, and oh, how I love to strip it I treat it with such tenderness and actually sleep with it under my blanket.

In performances the letters are given context by18 songs from the period adapted by Tony Saletan. Although most are songs that have themes of bravado, the mood they create is elegiac; the victories they promise didn’t occur. If you have ever attended protest meetings, many of them may sound, as “The Peat Bog Soldiers” did for me, familiar.

Wir sind die Moorsoldten

Und ziehen mit dem Spaten Ins Moor

We are the peat bog soldiers

We’re marching with our spades, To the bog.

* * *

But for us there is no complaining,

Winter will in time be past;

One day we shall cry rejoicing,

Homeland dear, you’re mine at last

Then will the peat bog soldiers

March no more with their spades, To the bog.

Dann ziehen die Moorsoldaten

NICHT MEHR mit dem Spaten, Ins Moor.

However, print isn’t a sufficiently effective medium for encountering this work; unless you are planning to stage a performance and will be reading it as a play script, you need to hear the exchange of letters with those songs, for without music the script seems flat. That is why I recommend you begin your encounter with the courage and idealism of George and Ruth, not by reading their letters, but by listening to the 2004 studio performances by Dan and Molly Lynn Watt accompanied by the folk music mastery of Tony Saletan on YouTube: Act I : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8fmUi5cs4E and Act II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LAh4pfLWmE.

Reading Songs and Letters prompted me to refresh my chronology of the Spanish Civil War. In 1937 the Spanish Communist Party betrayed the youthful idealism, courage and enthusiasm expressed in these letters when it began purging the Republican side of rival leftist factions. The purges were well underway by August of 1937 when the Abraham Lincoln Battalion arrived in Spain. Those purges would weaken the Republican forces and would be one factor contributing to Franco’s and fascism’s eventual triumph. I recommend Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia as a good place to begin a refreshment.

When I followed Dan and Molly’s instructions to search YouTube for George and Ruth, Songs and Letters, I found, as you may, a couple of performances but they had music that was inferior to Tony Saletan’s. But, I also found a link for a virtual performance via “ “Evenbright” on February 3, 2024, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/george-and-ruth-songs-and-letters-of-the-spanish-civil-war-tickets-742234632767. Here is Dan’s invitation “For more information about possible live performances, you may email Danwatt40@comcast.net or Mollywatt@comcast.net.”