Girl from the North Country (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Conor McPherson

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Duluth, Minnesota. 1934. A community living on a knife-edge. Lost and lonely people huddle together in the local guesthouse. The owner, Nick, owes more money than he can ever repay, his wife Elizabeth is losing her mind and their daughter Marianne is carrying a child no one will account for. So, when a preacher selling bibles and a boxer looking for a comeback turn up in the middle of the night, things spiral beyond the point of no return... In Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson beautifully weaves the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan into a show full of hope, heartbreak and soul. It premiered at The Old Vic, London, in July 2017, in a production directed by Conor McPherson.

Leseprobe

Conor McPherson

GIRL FROM THENORTH COUNTRY

Music and Lyrics byBob Dylan

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Introduction

Dedication

Characters

Act One

Act Two

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Girl from the North Country premiered at The Old Vic, London, on 8 July 2017, with the following cast:

MARIANNE LAINE

Sheila Atim

DR WALKER

Ron Cook

MRS BURKE

Bronagh Gallagher

ELIZABETH LAINE

Shirley Henderson

NICK LAINE

Ciarán Hinds

KATHERINE DRAPER

Claudia Jolly

JOE SCOTT

Arinzé Kene

MRS NEILSEN

Debbie Kurup

ENSEMBLE

Kirsty Malpass

MR PERRY

Jim Norton

ENSEMBLE

Tom Peters

ENSEMBLE

Karl Queensborough

GENE LAINE

Sam Reid

REVEREND MARLOWE

Michael Shaeffer

ELIAS BURKE

Jack Shalloo

MR BURKE

Stanley Townsend

MUSICIANS

Violin & Mandolin

Charlie Brown

Guitars

Pete Callard

Double Bass

Don Richardson

Director

Conor McPherson

Music and Lyrics

Bob Dylan

Designer

Rae Smith

Orchestrator, Arranger and    Musical Supervisor

Simon Hale

Lighting Designer

Mark Henderson

Sound Designer

Simon Baker

Musical Director

Alan Berry

Movement Director

Lucy Hind

Casting Director

Jessica Ronane CDG

Introduction

Maybe five years ago I was asked if I might consider writing a play to feature Bob Dylan’s songs. I initially didn’t feel this was something I could do and I had cast it out of my mind when, one day, walking along, I saw a vision of a guesthouse in Minnesota in the 1930s.

I had been in Minnesota twice in the years leading up to this – both times in the dead of winter. The friendliness of the people, the dry frozen wind, the vast distance from home, these things had stayed with me. And I saw a way Mr Dylan’s songs might make sense in a play.

I was invited to write down the idea I had seen and send it to Bob Dylan. A few days later I heard back that Mr Dylan liked the idea and was happy for me to proceed. Just like that.

And then I received forty albums in the post, covering Mr Dylan’s career. While I owned Dylan albums already, like Desire and Blood on the Tracks, and loved many of his songs (often without knowing he’d written them) performed by hundreds of artists from The Byrds to Fairport Convention, I had no idea of the real search he had been on his whole life.

It strikes me that many of Mr Dylan’s songs can be sung at any time, by anyone in any situation, and still make sense and resonate with that particular place and person and time. When you realise this you can no longer have any doubt you are in the presence of a truly great, unique artist.

Working on our production of Girl from the North Country, sometimes I would wake in the night with a Bob Dylan song going round in my head. The next day I would come into rehearsals and we’d learn the song and put it in the show. Did it fit? Did it matter? It always fit somehow.

Many books have been written in an attempt to explore this universal power. Even though Mr Dylan will say he’s often not sure what his songs mean, he always sings them like he means them. Because he does mean them. Whatever they mean.

Every time I hear these songs I see a picture like I’m watching a movie. Sometimes it’s the same, sometimes it’s different, but you always see something.

Like Philip Larkin, like James Joyce, Mr Dylan has the rare power of literary compression. Images and conceits are held in unstable relations, forcing an atomic reaction of some kind, creating a new inner world.

But let’s talk about his musicality. Spending time with his music has taught me a few things: Firstly, writing something that sounds original is rare, but writing something that sounds original and simple at the same time is the mark of genius. Anyone can keep making things more complicated, but to keep a song simple, like it somehow always existed and would have surely been written by someone, someday… try writing that one.

Secondly, Mr Dylan always goes through the right musical door. Listening to a Bob Dylan song is like being in a room you’ve never been in before. It’s full of characters and images and tons of musical atmosphere. But then Bob changes the chords, moving through a bridge or a chorus, and a door opens up in that room, so you go through that door into another room – but it’s always the right door.

Thirdly, Mr Dylan sings about God a lot. Sometimes God appears as an impossible reflection of yourself. Sometimes as someone you could never know. But however God appears, however Mr Dylan begs for mercy, you understand that cry.

Anyway, I write this on the eve of moving from the rehearsal room to the theatre. Whatever happens next I have no idea. All I can say with any certainty is that having had Mr Dylan’s trust to create a piece of work using his songs has been one of the great artistic privileges of my life.

Conor McPhersonLondon, 2017

For Fionnuala and Sumati

Characters

NICK LAINE, early fifties, proprietor

ELIZABETH LAINE, early fifties, his wife

MARIANNE LAINE, nineteen, their daughter

GENE LAINE, twenty, their son

MRS NEILSEN, early forties, a widow

MR BURKE, fifties, erstwhile factory owner

MRS BURKE, fifties, his wife

ELIAS BURKE, thirty, their son

JOE SCOTT, late twenties, a boxer

REVEREND MARLOWE, fifties, a Bible salesman

MR PERRY, early sixties, a shoe-mender

DR WALKER, middle-aged, a physician

KATHERINE (KATE) DRAPER, Gene’s ex-girlfriend

Setting

A fair-sized family house, which is now serving as a guesthouse in Duluth, Minnesota. Winter, 1934.

Note on Lyrics

An ellipsis (…) on its own line indicates an omitted verse or chorus from within the original song.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

ACT ONE

Actors and musicians on stage to get ready for the live broadcast. Someone sits a piano and plays and sings. A drummer, double-bass player and guitar player join in along the way, as do the cast, harmonizing.