Girl From the North Country converts a doubtful theatre goer

Though finding most forms of artistic endeavour attractive and often immersive, I’ve never been strongly attracted to theatrical works.  I can acknowledge that many of them are great and have been an audience member for a few of them, but it’s not an art-form I have ‘followed’ or even paid a great deal of attention to.  Consequently I’ve not had any great desire to write for the theatre.

And certainly not to act.  I enjoy performing, as anyone who has heard me reading from ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ will probably confirm, but anything that would depend on learning ‘lines’ is pretty much out of the question as I have a distinctly malfunctioning memory.

It may be somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear that I spent some years in the early 1980s as a member of a touring theatre group.  There is an explanation.  The group, Word and Action (Dorset), was to a large extent run on a collective basis and had branched out into various ‘community arts’ activities including publishing.  I joined because they were looking for someone to co-ordinate a poetry magazine.  A different Dorset based poet was invited to edit each issue – I was to be the ‘go-between’.  Fine.  I was cut out for that.  But then they said: ‘this is a collective.  You participate in everything we do.’  Gulp.

But what they did, I certainly admired.  It was, on absolute principal, 'theatre in the round' – no special lighting, no special effects or soundtrack, virtually no scenery or costume.  It was a form of theatre that sought to remove any sense of hierarchy that exists between performer and audience, and to enable audience members to use their own imaginations to a much greater degree.  (I’ll add a couple of links at the end for anyone interested).  Much of W&A(D)’s work was improvised, audiences being invited to create - and join in performing - the story.  To my surprise, with some in-group training, I discovered I had whatever it takes to be a part of this process and ended up working not only in Dorset but joining touring groups in the UK and Scandinavia.  When it came to the scripted work I remained crap and fortunately was not called upon to do much of it.

I left the group after two or three years, following my own star once more.  Its view of theatre had made a lasting impression on me and I was deeply suspicious of any kind of staged theatrical performance.  This combined with my earlier lack of interest, and though in time I mellowed, theatre remained low on my list of priorities.  Consequently, when I left a subsequent employment in 2012 and my generous work colleagues presented me with a substantial pile of theatre tokens as a parting gift, I was bemused.  I made polite noises of gratitude and privately thought: ‘What am I going to do with these?’

Five years later and I finally got to use some of them.  Passing through London on the train I saw a poster advertising ‘Girl From the North Country’ and was intrigued.  Written and directed by Conor McPherson, it said, music and lyrics by Bob Dylan.  McPherson was a ‘complete unknown’ as far as I was concerned.  Dylan certainly wasn’t.  Checked it out online back home and the intrigue continued.  Discovered I could use my tokens at the Old Vic where it was on.  Asked my dear partner if she was up for it and she was.  Thus, last Wednesday, we found ourselves sat in the middle of Row R, in stall seats we would normally have balked at paying for, as the performance commenced.

As I hope I’ve explained, I had a lot of suspicion to overcome – and I haven’t even mentioned yet that of all forms of theatre ‘musicals’ were at the bottom of my list.  I’m not among the most fanatical of Bob Dylan appreciators, but can think of few other songwriters whose best work has remained so resonant and powerful for most of my life.  The play uses songs from 1963 to 2012, and plenty of my favourites are amongst them.  What were they going to do?  Give them the ‘showbiz’ treatment?  The thought appalled me.

Some reassurance came with the instrumentation evident on the stage – a drumkit to stage right, an upright piano to stage left.  Not much else to be seen until musicians appeared toting acoustic guitars, upright bass and fiddle.  The choice was, apparently, to use only instruments contemporaneous with the play's 1930s period setting.  Further reassurance came with the first song: ‘Sign on the Window’ from ‘New Morning’.  Beautifully sung, the freshness and suggestiveness of the lyrics (‘Sign on the window says "lonely, " / Sign on the door said "no company allowed, "…’) seemed re-illuminated for me.

It aptly, if not literally, set the atmosphere for the play that was to follow – an interweaving of stories set in the single location of a Duluth, Minnesota guesthouse during the Depression era.  The various characters are beset by tragedy, some of their own making, some forced by desperate circumstance – yet the script is loaded with humour and sharp repartee.  It doesn’t take long before you feel for them, share their hopes and aspirations and, as the chips go down, their despair.

As for the musical interludes – which is how they came, often as medleys of two or more songs – the pattern of aptness, rather than literal correlation became set and worked, for me, extremely well.  This approach has been described by the play’s creators as ‘a conversation between the songs and the story’ and, thinking about it, is probably the only way you could locate some of Dylan’s most powerful songs in such a context.  It helped that the performers, almost every last one of them, were such strong and impassioned singers and that the musical arrangements were mostly spot-on appropriate.

A few liberties were of necessity taken.  Lyrics to the songs were edited (how long would it have taken just to listen to those twenty songs in their entirety?) and were arranged and interpreted according to the emotional context of the scenes in which they featured.  Very occasionally, I did get a ‘showbiz’ vibe – the performance of ‘I Want You’ kind of palled for me, losing too much of the laconic splendour of its verses in favour of an over simplified emphasis on its chorus.  But this was a minor slip.  A lot of attention had been paid to the vitality of Dylan’s ‘born again’ era gospel-type arrangements and even when they did not originate in this period, a lot of the songs benefited from the additional harmonies etc.  The dancing was pretty darn good too.

So, as you’ve doubtless guessed by now, I was won over in the course of this performance.  It was particularly enhanced by what seemed to me a stand-out job of work by the diminutive but powerful Shirley Henderson, as Elizabeth, wife of the guesthouse proprietor, Nick.  Described as a victim of dementia her character provided a kind of ‘holy fool’ element – apparently deranged yet speaking, at times, the most penetrating truths.  This actress clearly relished the part and sometimes literally threw herself into it, managing to maintain her sense of her character even in the group dance routines.  Her rendition of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ touched on the sublime.  I’ve singled her out but similar relish could be felt in a good many more of the character parts, and – towards the end – the script touched on deeper and more fundamental human issues.  I will be keeping an eye open for more of Conor McPherson’s work in future.

Okay, now I have to admit, I was in tears at the end.  There was tragedy, there was redemption for some, and there was a final rendition of ‘Forever Young’ – one of Dylan’s sweetest and most hopeful songs.  As much as the story and the performances, it was the sense of celebration of Dylan’s work that affected me so strongly, I think.  So final words to him:

Can you tell me where we're headin'?

Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?

Seems like I been down this way before

Is there any truth in that, señor?

Word and Action links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_and_Action
http://www.rggregory.com/
http://roundtheatre.blogspot.co.uk/

Holger Czukay - Sound Surfer, 1938-2017

Found dead, earlier this month, in the Innerspace Studios apartment where he’d lived for many years, Holger Czukay was a unique musician.  I didn’t always ‘get’ his work.  Experiments, by their nature, are not always going to be successful.  Chances taken are not always going to pay off.  But my respect is reserved for those who take such risks, especially when they’ve the skill and vision to achieve at least the occasional sublime result.

The 1979 album ‘Movies’ is, for me, the most wholly successful of his works.  It was re-released in 2016 under the title ‘Movie’, remixed presumably to its creator’s satisfaction and with an additional instrumental version of its opening track.  I’m still living with the original recording, listened to once more on the day I read of his death, and still as fresh and vital a set as when I first heard it.  Intricately laced into its exhilarating rhythms, filigree guitar patterns and occasional, archly quirky vocals are a seemingly endless sequence of what we eventually learned to call ‘samples’.  Music from the middle east and elsewhere recorded with the scratchy sonic patina of imperfect reception on a.m. radio, plus snatches of American film dialogue and animated cartoon sound effects are the principal elements of this dazzling weave.  This audio collage is all the more amazing on account of its painstaking construction, involving the splicing of magnetic tape by hand, from what I can gather.

Whilst it was not an album by Czukay’s former band, Can, his bandmates all contributed, drummer Jaki Liebezeit most consistently.  Also recently deceased, Liebezeit continued to work frequently with Czukay during the 80s and 90s.  Interviews indicate a deep mutual respect.  On ‘Movies’ Liebezeit plays in a more nuanced and subtle manner than in the heyday of Can, but his utterly precise yet deeply felt rhythms are an essential part of the drive that carries the listener through its two lengthiest pieces: ‘Oh Lord Give Us More Money’ and ‘Hollywood Symphony’.  It’s been a few days since the evening I played it, but it’s a testament to its quality that the music has soundwormed its way into my thoughts and sequences of it still replay frequently somewhere within my brain.

There are equal, if not quite such consistent delights to be found on the majority of Czukay’s other recorded works.  The delightful ‘Ode to Perfume’ on follow-up album ‘On the Way to the Peak of Normal’, another lengthy and intricate piece; the haunted ambience of ‘Träum' mal wieder!’ and ‘Music in the Air’ on each of the albums that followed…  These spring to mind as personal favourites.  What anyone will pick out for his or herself will depend on taste, of course.  What might be chosen can be picked from an astonishing diversity of sounds and moods, from merry melodies to jarring discords.  One thing Czukay never was was predictable!

He got himself involved in some marvellous collaborations too.  Lengthy ambient works constructed with David Sylvian over two albums and occasional work with Jah Wobble stand out for me.  In later years, Czukay also worked closely with partner U-She – although at this point in his career the beauty came for me in smaller and rarer snatches.  That doesn’t matter – he’d earned the right to explore wherever and whatever he wanted.  The last of his albums to really draw me in was his ‘internet audio collaboration’ which was released as ‘Linear City’.  Its slow developing, techno immersed patterns took a while to penetrate but proved eventually to hold a full wealth of musical sensations.

Since I first got into music there have been certain artists whose individuality as creators has stood out and shone for me in ways that somehow go beyond just being great musicians.  I’m thinking of Don Van Vliet and his Magic Bands; of Lee Perry in his Black Ark Studio period; of Michael Hurley and his extraordinary songs…  It’s stuff that touches me beyond taste, beyond intellect.  On a direct line to whatever I think of as my ‘soul’, I guess.  Czukay was one of them, without a doubt.  Our world is more impoverished without him, but his achievements shine on.

Two Rooms So Far Apart

This year, apart from ‘Air B’n’B’s (all as yet pretty good), I’ve stayed with my partner in two accommodation establishments.  Looking through my notebook, I discover I’ve written descriptions of the main rooms we’ve stayed in, in both.  There could hardly be more of a contrast.  Here, slightly edited, is what I wrote:

Trallwyn Cottage, Pembrokeshire, March 2017.

The living room: our cwtch.  A section of white-painted stone wall protrudes into the room, to the left of a wood burning stove and small well-packed bookcase .  Draped from its top surface ledge, held in place by an unused spinning wheel, a ‘witch’ doll and three hand made teapots, is a roughly sewn patchwork quilt.  The exposed surface is made of flowery and patterned cottons – from old dresses, perhaps – in simple squares.  From one of the beams on the lean-to sloped ceiling, a wicker basket hangs.  Below this a small round pine table, with three matching chairs, and a rocking chair.  Against the opposite wall an old sofa, scattered with random cushions, and an electric heater in the corner.  Red velvet curtains hang on either side of a small window, which looks out on a garden view, ageing wooden bench seat prominent on the grass.  On the sill, a collection of beautiful objects – boxes, hand-painted stones, a vase of fresh picked wild flowers.  On a small chest of drawers, there’s a TV for those who want it, discretely covered with a drape of diamond patterned Indian-design material.  Next to it, another vase filled at this time with the season’s daffodils.  On the walls are various pictures, original paintings by the proprietor amongst them, and a mirrored candleholder.  And hanging, nearby, a deep and richly sonorous set of wind chimes.  A lushly patterned rug sits on the carpeted floor.  Overlooked by a ‘sleeping platform’, reached by means of a steep wooden staircase that descends into the room, this is a profoundly restful place.  It is suffused with a sense of calm and grace.  At the foot of the Presellis and a few minutes walk from the Gors Fawr stone circle, it’s amongst the most beautiful holiday accommodation I’ve ever experienced.

‘StayCity ApartHotel’ room, York, August 2017.

One of 187 near identical rooms, it is quintessentially utilitarian.  With the exception of a reasonably comfortable double bed and a garish yellow pouffe in one corner, everything you can see is in the shape of squares or rectangles – at least down to the level of smaller objects such as kettle, lamp shades etc.  It’s set up for self catering, and on a wall that separates the bathroom from the living area, is a fairly well equipped array, including microwave, fridge, hob and even a dishwasher.  The surfaces are in a white-grey veneer, patterned with a vaguely woodgrain effect.  There are no carpets.  It’s as if a double bed has been inserted into a kitchen.  Each side of the overall building, which is shaped as a semi-circle, comprises of a series of huge identical windows, separated by thin strips of concrete.  Each of these windows forms an entire room wall and cannot be opened (temperature control here being governed by a noisy air-conditioning device).  Like every other window to be seen, it’s covered by a large net curtain.  The view on our side of the building is of a flat, concrete semi-circle, beyond the straight edge of which is the breeze block architecture of York’s ‘Barbican’ theatre venue.  There is not a single piece of greenery to be seen.  Back inside, there’s a small square Formica topped table, with two dining chairs.  Along with a couple of bedside cabinets, that’s it for furniture/décor, apart from three standardised pictures hung above the bed, and a large, wall mounted, black flat screen TV opposite.  After a while here, I start to remember 60s/70s S.F. novels of dystopian, overcrowded futures, where human accommodation has been reduced to ‘cube cells’ or whatever.  This room feels like an embodiment of such a vision.  The only anomaly being that, down at the reception desk, there are still human beings, not robots.

To be fair, which I suppose I must be, the cumbersomely named ‘StayCity ApartHotel’ chain exists with the intention of providing relatively cheap, ‘no-frills’ accommodation in city centre locations, and is doubtless appreciated by those who make use of it.  While, in deepest Pembrokeshire, Anna Kavanagh’s Trallwyn Holiday Cottages (go to http://www.simplystonecottages.com/ for more info) are a sheer labour of love.  But having written both these pieces, I could not resist presenting the juxtaposition.

A Miscellany of Plums

They are in season.  In our house (the one I’ve just moved to if you read the last blog) they have been appearing frequently in brown paper bags whose contents rapidly disappear.  Quite fond of them myself, but the other half, she loves them.  They are well nice cooked, as far as I remember.  But chez nous they get eaten much too fast for any such preparation to be hoped for.

She knows her plums.  She reckons Victoria Plums, the ones you most commonly find, are far from the best and recommends a list of other varieties – some of which she obtains and do indeed taste pretty good, if I get to have a sample before they are gone.  Like so many fruit, supermarkets - with their general tendency towards enforcing standardisation and 52 week a year supply - tend to import them.  My partner, however, is not alone in thinking that British is best.

All this set me wondering.  Just how many varieties are there?  An online search proved overwhelming.  Some of the names alone are enough to make your mouth water.  Coe’s Golden Drop, anyone?  How about Belle de Louvain or Blue de Belgique (obviously British from skin to stone)?  And oh, to try a Warwickshire Drooper or a Denniston’s Superb, a Golden Sphere or a Wallis’s Wonder.

Some of these names are redolent of history or legend, it seems: Monarch, Black Prince, The President, Guinevere, Avalon and Excaliber.  Others the names of those who presumably bred them: Angelina Burdett, Edwards, Kirkes Blue, Reeves Seedling, Marjorie’s Seedling or the particularly evocative Sanctus Herbertus.  Yet more imply richness and quality: Ruby, Opal, Denniston’s Superb, Early Prolific, Valour and Verity.  Surely we can’t go wrong with any of these.  A plum pilgimage across our land is called for.  Just as soon as we…  Oh.  Hello reality.

It is, of course, a similar situation with apples.  The story does not end with Coxes, Galas, Braeburns or Granny Smiths.  Far, far from it.  But I’ve already bandied one list of wonderful names.  Go look for yourself.  The danger is that whatever you find may just be in danger of being lost if we don’t seek out the richness of product that main suppliers deem un-economic.  I’ve long been guilty of buying the crap stuff myself, simply out of convenience.  Imports from New Zealand?  What was I thinking?  But my partner’s enthusiasms have re-kindled my interest.  You can’t break the pattern every time you buy – if it’s the only shelf available and you’re hungry, you gotta eat.  But try when you can.  Keep variety (and locally produced variety at that) alive.

Now where can I find a nice Violetta, I wonder…

Cardboard Boxes

The blog today is being written in a house where nearly everything is packed in cardboard boxes awaiting a house move.  I’m sitting in a room that was once my ‘office’, where I got most of my writing done, surrounded by near content-less furnishings, some dismantled, and I’m feeling vaguely ghostly.  A spirit haunting premises that were once laden with the imprint of me and are now in the process of reverting to anonymity.

The circumstances are essentially happy, there are no regrets about this move, but there’s a touch of the bittersweet too.  I came to live in Shaftesbury (a small town at the northern tip of the county of Dorset, for any readers unfamiliar with the UK) just over three years ago with a very different set of expectations to those I hold now.  Some emotional twists and turns awaited me, and some of the expectations were shattered.  Yet the town itself drew me into its social life and held a welcome.  I chose to stay here.

So the move is not from Shaftesbury, but to another house within the town that’s suitable for myself and partner to share.  We haven’t found it yet but getting out of our individual houses first is a part of the process.  And this one has done me well enough and been a good home – hence the feelings of which I write.

So up in an attic bedroom whose dormer window looks out to a fairly distant view of the first hills of Cranborne Chase, the boxes are piling up.  Although it was one of the house’s most attractive features I never made much use of it until more recent times.  The rest of the house was my main domain, the work space here, a smaller first floor bedroom and the ground floor.  Being mid-terrace it was cosy and economic to keep warm in winter.  I filled the walls with psychedelic and art nouveau-ish artworks and drapes, enjoyed my books and recorded music, shunted ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ out into the world and made a start on novel.  All good stuff, and doubtless more to come in new circumstances.

But hey, you probably know what I’m saying.  End of a chapter and all that.  I’m not going to go on a my usual length.  There’s still plenty to be done before it all gets shifted on Thursday and the house will be emptied ready for some repairs to the rather crap chipboard flooring.  So this is just a wave and a hello.  Normal service to be resumed in two weeks time, more or less.

I leave you with, I hope, a video from YouTube of Loudon Wainwright III’s take on this whole moving thing.  

An Invitation

skeletal mysteries

bones on a slab

beyond pale borders

glow extends

and here

touched by symmetry

in stark divisions

the hidden denizens

wave into shape

all tendrils and twists

hold coils

that flicker

into and out of

any world

you care

to mention

any world

that offers

an invitation

A Blacksmith Courted Me

Running late again, sorry to all who read this with any regularity.  An ongoing house move situation is minimizing the time I have for this writing stuff, basically. So here's another older piece.

I've been fascinated by the folk song known as 'The Blacksmith' or 'A Blacksmith Courted Me' ever since I first heard it on an early Steeleye Span album.  Like so many ballads, it is riddled with narrative gaps and hints at most regarding what might fill them.  What interested me, apart from the beauty of the tune and the poetry of the words, was one of those hints: a suggestion that, despite the apparent betrayal or 'slighting' of the female narrator, she does not bear a grudge.  Of course the line: 'I wish them both much joy' could be taken for sarcasm in a bitter reproach.  But with my tendency to wilfully misunderstand, I imagined her taking a more philosophical point of view... perhaps.

In what follows, I tried in prose, but often quoting the song (in more than one version) to explore her mindset.  There is reference in the song to a period of nine months, an implication that her lovemaking with the blacksmith led to pregnancy and thus the stigma of an illegitimate child.  But this - it seems to me - is by no means clear, so in my piece I preferred to think that she had escaped that particular fate.  In which case, of course, forgiveness might have come a little more easily.

A Blacksmith Courted Me

Oh what’s the true meaning of all that transpires?

I look in the glass again and again, see only my own wan face, my dark ringed, uncomprehending eyes, and I shake my head once more.  And the curls and the tresses around my face do dance and waver as if there had never been strange news, as if he had never gone abroad or stooped to gather the sweet primeroses.

There are stages where these tales are forever acted out.  And there are acts, one after another, in which the stages of this tale unfold.  With what does it begin?  Ah, bliss.  It begins with faith, with hope, with love and trust.

It begins with his hammer, striking the anvil, so clever, so steady.  The sparks that flew across the smithy.  With his smile as he paused to hear my entreaty, a request from my father, shoes for the horses, equipment in need of repair.  And his tender eyes as he watched me, clutching my shawl close, a little afraid - for all the times I had walked past the smithy I had never once set foot inside.  His broad and sturdy arms.  The rosy glow in his cheeks.  Oh, I had seen him many a time before.  Ours is a small town.  But that day I saw as if for the first time.  I saw my love.

Said he: “Your father is a good man.  This work I’ll do and he’ll settle with me when he can.”

As soon as I was able, I hurried away – for I could barely remain stood fast upon my own two feet, such were the feelings that o’erwhelmed me.  Yet why should I mistake kindness for affection?  Better not to let imaginings rob me of my good senses.

The trust, it grows, as sapling does to oak, seeming sure and steady.  His ready smile and greeting whenever our paths did cross.  The light in his eyes that shone for me alone, as he played so neat and trim upon his pipes for the young girls to dance at the summer fair.  And then came his letter, the coarse paper near scorched by the ardour of which he wrote.  So mayhap the fault is mine.  I should not have lain beside him that night.  I should have listened to some better counsel.  I should not have believed him when he said he’d marry me.  When he said he’d not deny me.

And then comes the break - the call to other lands to fight for king and country.  Oh, with what concern he’d listen to my entreaties then.  “You must not go,” said I, “to where the sun will burn your beauty.”  “I cannot stay at home,” said he and spoke of duty.  Duty I know.  That cannot be denied.

The weeks of waiting.  The months.  The years.  And set to steer me through it all, my wedding plans, my hopes, my foolish dreams.  Whilst he did march to fife and drum from battlefield to battlefield.  And all would be well if only he lived, had not the call to gather primeroses come upon him.

At last came that news so strange, a whisper from lips to ears, a buzz of words that spreads through the town.  “He is married.”  How can this be?  My love is married to another and will not return to his forge, where I loved so well to watch him at swing with his hammer.  I can find no sound meaning in this.  And yet it is so.

What was there to be done?  A message, perchance?  A former claim to consider right well?  A protest to rend his heart?  Of these I thought, oft, at length, day after day, night after night.  But too well I knew what he might say.  For witness had I none of what he’d promised.  And of where he’d made that promise, I knew I dared not speak.

God may reward him well for the slighting of me.  I cannot speak for the Divine Will nor yet, like some practitioner of witchcraft or wizardry, can I seek to sway its course.

If love him still I do, and still do I, then all that’s to be achieved in this the final act is to wish him well.  Him and his new love, may they prosper and thrive, may their babies be happy and blessed with health.  May he deceive no more.

And there I am, still pale and drawn, staring at myself from out of the glass.  Trying to make sense of what I cannot know, that tidal ebb and wash of the human heart, its vagaries, its weakness.

There is but one thing that I can be sure of.


If I was with my love, I’d do my duty.