Girl from the North Country: Introduction
Welcome to this introduction to The Old Vic audio described performance of Girl from the North Country written by Conor McPherson with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan. Conor McPherson has also directed this world premiere. The performance lasts for approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including an interval of 20 minutes. The audio described performance will take place on, Tuesday 19 September at 7.30pm. The touch tour will begin at 6pm.
Touch tours are completely free and last about 20 minutes. They give you an opportunity to explore the set and handle some of the props.There will also be an opportunity to meet some members of the production team who bring the play to the stage. It is essential to book, so please call 020 7981 0981 to reserve your place. If you’re coming to the tour on your own we can arrange for a member of staff to accompany you. Please also let the box office know if you'd like to bring your guide dog into the auditorium and we will try to offer an aisle seat if one is available. The Front of House staff will be happy to take care of your dog during the performance if you would prefer. Please come to the foyer at 5.45pmin time for the 6pmtouch tour.
The production programme tells us: The Girl from the North Country takes place in a guesthouse in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth Minnesotaduring the Depression-riven early 1930s.The cast of actors and musicians play performers who are broadcasting the story, as well as the characters within it.
There are 13 main characters, plus an ensemble of three who play Duluth townspeople and four musicians. They move in and out of character, joining together to sing Dylan’s songs and play the variety of instruments scattered about the stage, as well as some home-made from tin cans, sandpaper and wood blocks.The women are dressed in simple knee-length cotton print dresses in muted colours, short sleeved and gathered at the waist, or knee length tweed skirts and embroidered or Fair Isle pattern cardigans. The men wear cotton shirts, with a waistcoat and wide-legged trousers or long-sleeved vests and shabby jeans.
The stage is open to us, at first representing the studio where the recording is taking place. As well as musical instruments, in the front corners of the space there’s a jumble of furniture belonging to the guesthouse where the story takes place. The floor is made up of grubby linotiles, white ones forming a grid pattern around squares of pale green tiles. There’s a collection of musical instruments in the rear left corner, a piano, harmonium and various guitars, and in the middle of the floor, a double bass propped up on its side. In the front left corner is another piano, a sturdy upright instrument with a piano stool in front of it. Beside it is a radiogram on a small table and a plain wooden coatrack with a single coat hanging on it. Underneath this, a thin mattress is rolled up. In the front right corner is a drum kit. Beside it is a small black iron stove and an occasional table with a lamp on it. Another small table is covered by shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey. A chrome microphone on a long stem stands just off-centre at the front.
As the play begins with its first musical number, the guesthouse rooms are assembled by the company. A gauze screen is lowered to stand at the rear with a batteredhalf-glazed door painted on it. It’s joined by a real cooker and a butler sink to suggest the kitchen. A rattan armchair is placed in the front left corner. A substantial oak sideboard stands on the right, side on to us, and an assortment of dining chairs and a small square table are scattered around at the rear.Two members of the company bring in a long pine table and a crude wooden bench to the centreto complete the communal living and eating space in the guesthouse.A light with three-tulip-shaped glass shades descends to hang over the dining table.
Other areas in the house are represented by narrow painted gauze screens, one showing a window with a net curtain obscuring any view, another a trophy of stag’s antlers hanging next to a muddy-coloured landscape painting. Another screen shows the exterior of the guesthouse, a dilapidated cream clapboard wall with a glass door at the base shaded by another net curtain.
At times, the wider area of Duluth is shown in giant black and white photographs that hang suspended at the rear – a long country road narrowing to a point as it reaches the horizon, a hill in the town lined by houses, shops and telegraph poles, a calm, still lake with a shallow, stony shoreline reflecting the low hills surrounding it and the cloud-strewn sky above.
Gradually as people mill around during the opening song, greeting each other,we begin to discern the characters who make up the story.
The first we meet is the local doctor, Dr Walker. He appears as a narrator at the microphone. He’s a short, stocky figure in his early 50s, wearing a dark grey trilby and brown leather bomber jacket which he wears with a white shirt and dark tie. In common with the other men his trousers are wide legged and shapeless.His greying hair is swept back from his forehead and is in need of a trim, beginning to curl a little around his ears. Dr Walker has deepset brown eyes that don’t miss a thing.
The guesthouse is owned by Nick Laine, who struggles to keep it going and to care for his wife Elizabeth who suffers from progressive dementia.Nick is a large man in his fifties, tall and thickset. His raven black hair recedes at the temples and is slicked back with brilliantine to hangs to his collar. He has a strong prominent jaw and weary dark eyes. His brow is furrowed and his shoulders stoop. Nick wears a navy-blue waistcoat and trousers and a dark blueopen necked shirt. His sleeves are rolled up and a large white apron is tied around his waist.He is always on the move, lumbering backwards and forwards, fetching and carrying for his guests while keeping a watchful eye on his wife.
Elizabeth is a tiny childlike figure. She has a pale elfin face. The expression in her large dark eyes is often haunted or vacant and sometimes agitated. Her dark brown hair is parted in the centre and hangs limply to her shoulders. For much of the time Elizabeth flops in her rattan armchair. She no longer has any concept of modesty and her bare legs are often drawn up or spread wide, hanging over the arms of her chair.When Elizabeth stands, her stance is ungainly and she moves with no apparent motivation with an unnatural stepping pattern, lost in her own world and no longer participating appropriately in interaction with others. Elizabeth often removes items of clothing or resists her clothes being adjusted. When we first meet her, she wears a green cardigan with white Peter Pan collar with a shapeless brown plaid skirt,and a black wool zip jacket.On her feet are clumsy black boots.
Nick and Elizabeth have two grown up children, a son Gene and an adopted daughter Marianne, both in their early 20s. Gene is an aspiring writer. He’s tall and slim with short, tousled sandy-coloured hair and a dissatisfied sullen air. Gene’s face is stubbled and he’s is often disheveled as the result of a trip to the local bar. He wears a crumpled, open neck blue check shirt over a white vest. His high waistedbrown trousers are held up by braces.
Gene’s adopted sisterMarianneassists her father and helps to care for her mother. She’s a striking young woman, tall, long-limbed and slender. Unlike her adopted family, Marianne is dark skinned with black curls and large expressive dark eyes. She carries herself erect, her head high. She wears a cream cardigan with embroidered floral panels at the front. Her simple calf-length pink and green floral dress does not disguise the baby bump of advancing pregnancy. Later, Marianne changes into a satin dress in a dramatic shade of scarlet.
Gene spends time outside the guesthouse with a poised young woman, Katherine Draper, known as Kate.
Kate is a calm presence with a tumbling mass of strawberry blonde curls swept back from her softly pretty face. In contrast to Gene she’s neatly dressed in a navy blue wool coat, with matching gloves and stylish hat. When she removes the coat, Kate’s wearing abroderie-anglaise embroidered dress scattered with pink and cream flowers which outlines her slender figure.
A long-term resident in the guesthouse is Mrs Neilson. She is an attractive well-dressed woman in her 40s who has known better times. She has a heart shaped faced with high cheekbones and reddened lips, which match her bright red, full skirted dress. Her dark curls are well-coiffured with a centre parting. Mrs Neilson is much at home, sometimes helping the family with Elizabeth and responding to other guests with genuine warmth.
Two more guests arrive during the night.Joe Scott is a boxer aiming to restart his career. He’s in his late 20s, a young black man. Joe’s head is shaved and he has a heavy black beard. He has well developed muscles and wears a shirt open at the neck showing a clean white vest underneath. with rough denim jeans held up with braces. Joe’s travelling companion introduces himself as the Reverend Marlowe. Marlowe is tall and wiry. His sandy-blond hair is cut in a short back and sides and his features are sharp and angular with a faint moustache. He is dressed in a light grey three-piece suit and a white collarless shirt buttoned to the neck and secured with a pearl pin. Marlowe wears wire-framed spectacles and carries a bible in his pocket.
At breakfast the following morning we meet a family staying at the guesthouse, Mr and Mrs Burke and their adult son, Elias.
Mr Burke is a bluff, cheery man his fifties with iron-grey hair swept back from a ruddy, rather fleshy face. He’s heavily-built and walks with a ponderous trudge. Mr Burke dresses in a comfortable slate-blue cardigan and grey slacks, but always with a carefully-knotted tie.
His wife is of a similar age, made up like a porcelain doll with ruby lips and arched eyebrows. Her hair is bleached blonde, teased into girlish curls and waves, but with prominent black roots. Mrs Burke has retained a shapely figure and shows acoy, flirtatious manner for the other guests, but her face settles into a discontented scowl when she’s with her husband. Her crimson dress is ruffled at the neck and long sleeved.
The two are parents to Elias, a man in his thirties with the mind of a child. Elias is tall and bulky, towering over the Burkes. His face is pale and round with rosy cheeks and distant blue eyes and his short curly hair is bright ginger.Elias’s parents have dressed him immaculately in a grey-green tweed jacket and Fair Isle pullover with grey trousers. At his throat is a blue bow tie. Elias is quiet and compliant, meekly allowing his father to guide him by plodding behind him, his hand on the older man’s shoulder.
As well as our narrator, Dr. Walker, there is another regular visitor from the town. This is Mr Perry, the local shoemaker. He’s short and slight, an elderly white-haired man.Mr Perry is soberly dressed in a formal black suit and black overcoat. He arrives carrying a bunch of flowers.
An ensemble of three actors, one female and two male, play other guests and towns people.
The Company is completed by four musicians who also appear as visitors to the guest house to add their voices to the songs.They’re dressed in jeans, workshirts under waistcoats, and trilby hats and caps.
Bob Dylan’s music has been adapted by Simon Hale and has been transformed into yearning ballads, as well as blues, gospel, country and soul, sung as solos, duets and ensembles.
CAST
Dr Walker, our narrator, is played by Ron Cook
The guesthouse owner Nick Laine is played byCiarán Hinds
His wife Elizabeth is played byShirley Henderson
Their son Gene by Sam Reid
Their adopted daughter, Marianne by Sheila Atim
The boarding house guests are:
Mrs Neilson, played by Debbie Kurup
The boxer, Joe Scott played by Arinze Kené
The Reverend Marlowe played by Michael Shaeffer
Mr Burke, played by Stanley Townsend
Mrs Burke, played by Bronagh Gallagher
Elias Burke, their adult son is played by Jack Shalloo
The townspeople are:
Gene’s ex-girlfriend Katherine, known as Kate, is played by Claudia Jolly
Mr Perry, the local shoe mender is played by Richard Norton
The ensemble is Kirsty Malpass, Tom Peters and Karl Queensborough
The musicians are
Alan Berry,the musical director on piano and harmonium
Charlie Brown, violin and mandolin
Pete Callard, lap steel resonator guitar, acoustic and nylon string guitars
Don Richardson, upright bass
Production credits
Girl from the North Country is designed by Rae Smith
The Orchestrator, Arranger and Musical Supervisor is Simon Hale
Lighting is by Mark Henderson
Sound bySimon Baker
The Musical Director is Alan Berry
Movement Director is Lucy Hind
Girl from the North Country is written and directed by Conor McPherson with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan.