Richard
Cambridge’s Poets’ Theater
Celebrates
its 7th Anniversary this Sunday at Club Passim
By Susie
Davidson
CORRESPONDENT
This Sunday
at 7:30 p.m., Passim will host the 7th Anniversary Celebration of
Richard Cambridge’s Poets’ Theater. Housed in the venerable 47
Palmer St. venue, the series has featured over 70 performances; this event will
showcase Manisha Shahane, Zenos Eros and Indigo Moor.
Cambridge,
a longtime fixture of the Cambridge area poetry scene, began the series in
1995, while Passim was revamping. “The genesis of the project happened
with a phone call,” he recalled. “Passim was reorganizing as Club
Passim, and poet and booking agent Tim Mason offered me the opportunity to
produce a poets’ theater.”
Cambridge won the Master's Slam at the 1997 National Poetry Slam, was a member of the 1992 Boston Championship Slam Team, and won Third Place on the 1993 Cambridge team. Past awards have included the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize and finalist for a residency at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Cambridge’s work has been featured in, among other publications, the Heartland Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Defined Providence, Red Brick Review, Squawk, Nantucket Journal and Asheville Poetry Review.
At the time
of the Passim offer, he was experimenting with poetry performance which he said
was “outside the scope of traditional readings.” In 1992 he
produced and co-authored “Where the Red Road Runs,” a dramatic
performance of poetry and music by local artists, which conveyed a Native
American perspective of the European settlement of the Americas. The show,
which included Passim’s Mason and was one of the few alternative events
to the U.S. Quincentennial Celebration of Columbus, ran for five months at the
former Harvard Square comedy club Catch a Rising Star.
From 1994
to 1996 Cambridge also worked with director Patrick Trettenero (“Late
Night Catechism”) on “The Cigarette Papers: A Spiritual Journey
from Addiction,” which ran at the ICA, Boston Playwrights’ Theater,
and Little Flags Theater, received wide acclaim by both the medical and
literary communities, and was hailed by the Boston Globe as “a
tour-de-force.”
“The
Club Passim series was just the opportunity I was looking for,” said
Cambridge, who credits T.S. Elliot, Leonard Cohen, Keats and Yeats as major
poetic influences. “The Cambridge-Boston open mic scene is a fertile
ground for poets, musicians and performance artists. When you put this all
together you’ve got Poets’ Theater, and you can really take the
audience on a journey engaging all the disciplines of the stage in performance
art.”
The series
has featured, among many other performances, Sebastian Lockwood’s
classical improvisation of the Odyssey with flamenco guitar, and poet-griot
Askia Toure’s modern classic, “From the Pyramids to the
Projects.” “The Poets’ Theater at Club Passim has nurtured
artists and challenged them to assemble dramatic works,” said Cambridge.
Cambridge,
who refers to himself as a cultural revolutionary, has also addressed major
contemporary issues at the club. His performance troupe, Singing with the
Enemy, has performed “¡EMBARGO!”, centering on the U.S.
government’s 43-year blockade of Cuba; his current production,
“PRESENTE!,” addresses political prisoners in the U.S. “They
were convicted unjustly not because they did wrong, but because they did
right,” he said. The Poets’ Theater has also produced benefits for
the Rainbow Coalition as well as for political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and
Leonard Peltier.
In his own
work, Cambridge cited the overriding themes of nature, relationship, political
struggles (including the Native American movement), and the struggle of women.
“My
line, ‘What is a twist of rhyme to a Black man doing time?,’
questions the significance of poetry,” he said, “if people are
unjustly incarcerated, or if they are being killed in wars in foreign regions
where we have no real business. I’ve always struggled with the promotion
of social consciousness.”
Artists, he
feels, must speak for their times as well as those which are eternal.
“All great art will transcends its time,” he said, “and at
the same time, speak for its own era. We must take issue with all contemporary
challenges, and any ongoing war, since all war is ultimately wrong. Artists
have the responsibility to be a part of the community at large, yet incorporate
a sense of timelessness which transcends the human condition.” He cited
the Dylan song "Blowing in the Wind."
On August
4, Shahane, whose artistry is rooted in folk, jazz and Indian traditions, will
perform poetry and song with keyboard, guitar and drum. Eros, who with poet
Gabrielle Zane and musician Ludent Tremmel will merge spoken word, performance
art and progressive tribal music in provocative and ethereal arrangements, is a
favorite on the local music and spoken word scene. Moor, whose poetry explores
timeless childhood themes, is a recent arrival from Sacramento, Calif., and
will incorporate jazz and blues music into his act.
Tickets are
$10. Club Passim is not wheelchair accessible; for reservations and additional
information call 617-492-7679.