The spirit of Woody Guthrie is alive and well in the East Village, thanks to Ethan Lipton’s “No Place To Go,” a “musical ode to the unemployed.”
Stylistically, the 41-year-old hews more closely to the droll humor of Mose Allison and Leonard Cohen. But Guthrie would have liked Lipton’s witty, impassioned songs about the common man, including one about the WPA that name-checks the agency’s director, Harry Hopkins.
This whimsical song cycle commissioned by Joe’s Pub, the cabaret arm of the Public Theater, revolves around Lipton’s “permanent part-time” day job as an “information refiner” who’s told his company is relocating . . . to Mars.
He’s faced with the choice of moving there or looking for a new job. Considering his last résumé was done on an Atari computer and he can’t find the floppy disc, that isn’t going to be easy.
But being an “emerging playwright and old-time singer/songwriter” doesn’t pay the bills. As he points out, “By the time I die, I’ll be rich — in anecdotes.”
The musical numbers, written and performed by the singer and his three-piece band, have a wonderfully old-fashioned jazzy feel. Highlights include the comically propulsive “S – – tstorm,” the funky “Incorporate” and a lament about having to move back in with his “Aging Middle-Class Parents.” And the monologues showcase his dry wit.
“Anxiety,” he informs us with mock desperation, is just “excitement in disguise.”
Not everything in this 90-minute show works: A running gag in which Lipton pretends to ignore his long-suffering band members’ pleas for attention gets old fast. But as effectively staged by Leigh Silverman (“Chinglish”), “No Place To Go” is good enough to suggest its talented writer/performer won’t have to temp much longer.