Dylan Bob - Girl from the North Country

OTHER PLAYS BY CONOR MCPHERSON PUBLISHED BY TCG Dublin CarolThe Night Alive and Other Plays Also Includes: The BirdsThe VeilThe Dance of DeathPort AuthorityThe SeafarerShining CityThe Weir and Other Plays Also Includes: St. NicholasThis Lime Tree BowerThe Good ThiefRum and VodkaGirl from the North Country (the play) is copyright 2017 by Conor McPherson Introduction is copyright 2017 by Conor McPherson Copyright information for the individual songs can be found on page 95. Girl from the North Country is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156. This volume is published in arrangement with Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London, W12 8QP. All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved. Requests to produce the text in whole or in part should be addressed to the publisher.

Applications for performance in excerpt or in full by non-professionals in the English language throughout the world should be addressed, in the first instance, to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, telephone +44 (0)20 8749 4953, email nickhernbooks.co.uk, except for the U.S. and Canada, see details below. Applications for performance by professionals in any medium and in any language throughout the world (and for stock and amateur performances in the U.S. and Canada) should be addressed to Curtis Brown Ltd, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP, telephone +44 (0)20 7393 4400, fax +44 (o)20 7393 4401, email cb@curtisbrown.co.uk. No performance of any kind may be given unless a license has been obtained. Applications should be made before rehearsals begin.

Publication of this play does not necessarily indicate its availability for performance. This publication is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-55936-882-7 (ebook) Cover image copyright by CLIPART LLC First TCG Edition, October 2017 For Fionnuala and Sumati CONTENTS Maybe five years ago I was asked if I might consider writing a play to feature Bob Dylans songs. I initially didnt 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 Dylans 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 Dylans career. While I owned Dylan albums already, like Desire and Blood on the Tracks, and loved many of his songs (often without knowing hed 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 Dylans 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 wed 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 hes 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 Im watching a movie.

Sometimes its the same, sometimes its 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 lets 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 youve never been in before. Its 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 its 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 Dylans trust to create a piece of work using his songs has been one of the great artistic privileges of my life. Conor McPhersonLondon, 2017Girl 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	Ciarn Hinds
KATHERINE DRAPER	Claudia Jolly
JOE SCOTT	Arinz 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