{"id":9325,"date":"2024-05-04T23:57:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T05:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=9325"},"modified":"2024-05-05T00:21:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T06:21:48","slug":"exhuming-joe-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/04\/exhuming-joe-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhuming Joe Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By now viewers of MSNBC surely are familiar with reporter Adam Klasfeld who currently is attending the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump. You may not know that Klasfeld holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Rutgers and studied in London with Richard Digby Day (who “is credited with discovering actors\u00a0Ralph Fiennes\u00a0and\u00a0Hugh Grant”<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>). Klasfeld is the author of a number of plays as well as artistic director of the theater company One Armed Man.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Because I’m a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, I became interested in Klasfeld’s theatrical side months ago upon reading that he authored a play called I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill’s Lover, Last Night<\/em> (2011). It’s the second installment in Klasfeld’s American Folk Trilogy, itself consistent with a body of “work [that] often takes dark twists on little-known historical narratives.” Part one, Report of My Death<\/em> (2009) involves Mark Twain’s “later life and politics.” Part three, Pluck<\/em>, “drudged up the sordid scandal that nearly ruined Horatio Alger.”<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Daily
From the Daily Worker<\/strong>, New York edition, September 4, 1936. The title is simply \u201cJoe Hill,\u201d and the sheet music lyrics don\u2019t match the ones below.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Klasfeld’s title for the trilogy’s part two incorporates the first lines of a famous ode to Joe Hill, who was an organizer with the IWW as well as a cartoonist and lyricist (whereby we have the phrase<\/a> “pie in the sky”). The song “Joe Hill” (aka “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”) comes from a poem by Alfred Hayes. In 1936 Hayes was artistic director at a Communist summer gathering called Camp Unity, attended by Abel Meeropol (writer of the classic “Strange Fruit”) as well as musician Earl Robinson. In preparation for a fireside tribute to the IWW that year Hayes handed Robinson his poem, whereupon Robinson retreated to a tent, emerging with a song minutes later.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> And the rest is history\u2014at least for those who heard Joan Baez sing the song at Woodstock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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