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[0:35] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theatre Podcast, bringing you behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond.

[0:43] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox. On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Conor McPherson, the Irish playwright who's become a New York favorite over the last 20 years with plays like The Weir, Shining City, and The Seafarer, all haunted by mystery and touched with the supernatural. His latest play, Girl from the North Country, is now at the Public Theater off Broadway following a well-received run in London that started at the Old Vic and moved to the West End. Perhaps most notable of all, Girl from the North Country features some twenty pre-existing songs by Bob Dylan. But don't call it a jukebox musical. Hi, Conor. Thanks for being here.

[1:19] Conor McPherson: Oh, thanks for having me.

[1:20] Gordon Cox: It is very clear that although Girl from the North Country has sort of all the trappings of what one might consider a jukebox musical, it's definitely not that. And to a degree, I feel like is it even a musical? Because it operates in such a different way from so many traditional musicals. How do you think of it?

[1:37] Conor McPherson: I really don't know because I don't have a lot of experience of musicals, really. And I think in a few It's not that it's not a musical because it doesn't have songs in it, because there are like twenty of those Dylan songs in there, right? Um yeah, I mean, it's certainly equally musical time as a, you know, to dialogue, I would say. I I would think at least, yeah. Probably at least maybe more. Yeah. So um it's yeah, it's a show which definitely uses um tons of songs. Um but I think in a funny way, I think all plays and playwrights probably uh aspire to that condition, you know. I think that you know most playwrights that I know of would sort of think of plays as songs in a funny way. You know, if and probably plays should be closer to that than they are to literature in a funny way. You know.

[2:34] Gordon Cox: Can you tell me more about that?

[2:36] Conor McPherson: Well, I think it's like a theater show uh is operating uh in a three-dimensional, sp in four dimensional, five dimensional, maybe because it's kind of got a very mysterious uh quality to it, anything that happens in the theater. And um so the play words on the page, um, you know, that's two dimensions, and of course you can bring your imagination to it when you're reading it, but when the actors are inhabiting it and uh you know you're sitting in the darkness uh as an audience member, really you should something beyond what's just in front of you happening sh should feel like it's occurring and we should be all sort of swept up into some kind of trance like uh commitment to to to what's happening. Um so in that sense it's kinda like that seems closer to music than than just a kind of uh someone reading something.

[3:34] Conor McPherson: So to me I would say yeah, it's gotta have that sort of strange um you know, beyond logic, beyond you know, uh I don't know, beyond simple narrative structure, you know, it it should have a feeling that's what's most important is not really happening in front of us, but it's we're feeling it, you know, in the darkness and in the edges of the play and you know underneath the play and we're connecting to it in a kind of physical way. So for me I think that's what theater that's what I would aspire to and that sometimes I would say feels more like music. And I've always used music in my productions of plays, straight plays and so to do this really to be honest with you feels really sort of natural.

Like if you want to have a scene change, I would always my favorite part of uh directing a show would in a way be the scene change because you get to play music and you get to do something really beautiful with the lights and you know you really make it something. And in a way that's uh we just have a ton of that happening in the show. Extended sequences with people singing singing as they sort of reset the the stage. You know so it's uh a lot of that is kind of happening.

[4:49] Gordon Cox: Right. Let's talk a little bit about the origin of this piece. You you were approached um to consider the idea of creating a stage piece uh that used the catalogue of Bob Dylan and that was from Bob Dylan's management uh company is that right?

[5:08] Conor McPherson: I think so I mean I assume you know yeah from whatever whoever looks after Bob Dylan. And and what what was your first reaction?

[5:18] Conor McPherson: Um my first reaction was that it was a kind of a bad idea because I just thought, you know Are you a Dylan fan? Or were you a Dylan fan?

[5:24] Conor McPherson: Well, I was a a Dylan admirer. Um, you know, I had probably like everybody else, I probably had like, you know, six Bob Dylan albums, you know, like everybody would have. And um then when I was approached about this, it wasn't that I thought it was a bad idea because I didn't think you know Bob Dylan was a great songwriter. It was just more that I thought, Oh, you know, what's that what what is that? Like what what do you you know what what? You know, um and um I suppose as well I just kinda thought, oh, this is just like it's a cash-in. It's a kind of an idea where if you were saying let's take this, you know, a brand and let's expand it and so forth. So it's uh you know, you initially are very suspicious. So I was kinda like, oh, I don't know if that's for me. But then I was walking along um one day and I just sort of for some reason I just kinda had Where was this in Dublin?

[6:13] Conor McPherson: In Dublin, yeah, where I live. And I live near the near the sea, and I was walking along there and I just for some reason I just in my head I just saw a kind of um an image of a kind of a play in the nineteen thirties, which sort of felt like a kind of Eugene O'Neill kind of situation. I thought, oh, you know, if there was something set in that kind of place that was using Bob Dylan songs with those kind of instruments, um you know, that could be something very different and kind of strange, you know. So I thought, well, uh it probably that's not what they want, you know. So I was talking I was talking to my agent a few days later and I said, Oh, I had this idea, you know, and he said, Oh well just write it down, just put it on a piece of paper anyway.

So I just typed out a little you know, page and a half of what it might be and sent it. In terms of the plot or the feel or all that. I just sort of thought, well, if there was um I had been to Minnesota a few times and I thought, well, if you said something in the nineteen thirties in Minnesota, uh, you know, but it's before Bob Dylan was born.

[7:11] Gordon Cox: Right. He's from that area.

[7:12] Conor McPherson: He's from there. He was born in Duluth and uh he grew up in Hibbing, and uh he you know, so I I just thought, well, if there was something set in a guest house and there's a family, you have the guest house and there's all these guests kind of coming through there and it's a depression and nobody's anywhere to live and nobody has any money, and they sing Bob Dylan songs, it's sort of I I don't know. So I sent that off, and then a few days later really I got um uh a call to say that Bob Dylan liked that idea and that I could use whatever songs I wanted. And then I suppose I became um from that point kind of sort of intrigued then because um it just felt like a a lovely way because they sent me then all his albums, like about fifty albums came.

It's a ton or sixty, I don't know, loads, and uh so I was then able to just listen to them all because I knew I could use them in any way or use whatever songs I wanted, it was just began to become just kind of a very interesting uh thing to do.

[8:08] Gordon Cox: Did as you listen to these to the songs, uh did they feel like a good match for your writing and the kind of subjects that you're drawn to in terms of?

[8:08] Conor McPherson: Well, what I thought was good was um that a lot of the time you don't really know what Bob Dylan is saying, you know, in in a literal sense. Um not because you can't understand his enunciation, but because yeah, because lyrics are the lyrics are sometimes they're discursive or suggestive or you know, they're so they did you know, there's a lot of um stream of consciousness kind of imagery really is going on. So in a way I knew that um okay but at the same time, uh everybody is you know feels a connection to his songs and thinks they know what they're about in some way. So I thought, well, if you just did that and it seemed to it seemed to sort of uh open up a kind of inner world for the characters, then like a kind of inner portraiture in some kind of way, well, then he's actually bringing a kind of huge quirkiness and individuality to the proceedings, which um it would, you know, you you simply can't create, you know. So um, so I I thought, yeah, it would it it would suit.

[9:20] Gordon Cox: Right. And how then did you go about choosing the songs?

[9:32] Conor McPherson: Well songs. I just only a couple of which are his most recognizable, really only one, maybe two. Um yeah, yeah. I mean, I just would listen, and if there was a song that I liked, I would go, okay. Musically or lyrically, or either kind of more musically, and then if lyrically, you know, you know, yeah, if if it wasn't completely at odds with what you were doing, then it was fine, you know, and you it didn't even have to be anything to do with what was happening. But his songs kind of all are to do with sort of anything that's happening in a funny way, you know. That's the that's the weird thing. You could sort of do them in any situation, and they kind of have a a certain relevance. So um, yeah, so it was more just I loaded them all onto my iPod and I would just walk around listening to his music, and um, I'd hear a song, I'd say here's I don't know, hear a song like Idiot Wind from uh Blood on the Tracks and go, Oh, that's a really interesting song. And uh, you know, and I just oh listen, like that core progression is so nice, you know, and uh I would then you know you use that and put it in, you know.

[10:38] Gordon Cox: So then once we had done that, did you have I guess but how how far along in the idea of the plot and the characters would you have been at this point like how much did the song shape the characters and the characters shape the song?

[10:38] Conor McPherson: Not so much really I think that the the characters yeah were you know I think in a way it's a very traditional kind of uh structure in the play it's very old fashioned in a way and um really deals with kind of almost archetypes you know you've got like a patriarch and a kind of a matriarch and you've got a kind of holy person and you've got a kind of fugitive and you've got a kind of girl with a mysterious secret and you know so you've got all these things going on which almost in a way are kind of Dylan esque in a funny way but um but they give it a kind of uh a structure and then his his songs give it a kind of um a strange you know quirky I don't know just um I mean you know uh I don't know just a a wonderfully unique characteristic so I felt that if I had a strong spine of a story uh that the songs could would would kick it out more kick it into weirder places and that you know the tension between those two things would would the you know the feeling would be somewhere in the middle.

[12:01] Gordon Cox: Do you how is there a general was there a general thinking in terms of how the songs functioned in terms of these you know actors creating characters like was everyone singing from the point of view of their own character in that specific moment, or did you also sort of open it up to uh because it it felt like a lot of those songs could, as you said, could like not only could apply to whatever the you know the character who singing, but can kind of expand out to kind of encompass the whole show. Like, how did you work with actors? We should say you directed the show as well. How did you work with actors in terms of thinking about how those songs function for their characters?

[12:40] Conor McPherson: Well, I think probably I would always say that this, you know, when you're singing, you're not in a scene with the other characters, you know, it's always somehow we're gone into your inner world, and so you're always just singing to us, the audience. So they don't really ever sing to each other on stage. Nobody looks at another person and sings, um, unless uh somehow they're supposed to be singing like they're doing a song at a party or something like that. But apart from that, uh no, no, they would always the songs tend to come straight out at us. Um so that was the approach to how much or how important a role did uh orchestration for these songs play because they sound uh quite different from I think a lot of the sound that a lot of people will be expecting from a lot of those songs, and you worked with an orchestrator and you're actually credited with uh some of the orchestrations yourself.

[13:31] Conor McPherson: Um how how much how did you work with uh with Simon Hale um on kind of figuring out what the songs sound like and when you made tempo changes and when you had like how you sort of adjusted the music to fit the moment?

[13:46] Conor McPherson: Well, we thought that a lot of the songs were really beautiful, and when they were stripped back um to kind of acoustic instruments, which is more like a 1930s sound, uh we thought they were really beautiful. I knew that I wanted a lot of choral arrangements because I felt that that was just uh something that would really, you know, be resonant in the theater, and um also just loving music and playing music.

[14:12] Gordon Cox: Yeah, do you play music yourself?

[14:13] Conor McPherson: Yeah, I do, but I mean what do you write songs?

[14:15] Conor McPherson: I have done, like you know, as a kind of amateur, you know, but um for like what what we would do would be uh sometimes I would come into rehearsals, and well, I I played the guitar a lot in rehearsals, right? So we um we'd have someone playing the piano, I would have a guitar, and maybe someone playing the drums, and so we would be doing a scene, and then I would start playing, and we go, Here's okay, the song should be here, and we'll try this, and we try that song. But then sometimes I might have been listening to a song just the night before, and I would go, you know, I was listening to this great song last night, and I think we should put it in.

[14:50] Conor McPherson: And we go, well, where could we put it? And I go, Well, look, if we're already singing a song, we've bought ourselves the space to just keep going. So then we would flip into another song and just do it. And then Simon would very quickly arrange some backing vocals, and we would just plow on and keep going. So it was just it was very instinctive in that way, very organic. And it wasn't that many songs that didn't make it, you know, maybe only about three songs.

[15:15] Gordon Cox: Yeah, I was just gonna ask if there was a lot of shuffling.

[15:17] Conor McPherson: Not so much, I mean, not really, you know, a few songs didn't make it, but mostly what we tried kind of worked, you know. So yeah.

[15:27] Gordon Cox: I'll be back with more from Conor McPherson right after this.

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[15:59] Gordon Cox: And we're back with the playwright Conor McPherson. And then the show opened last year, first at the Old Vic in London. What was your sort of takeaway from that run? What did you feel like? Oh, that like what surprised you about sort of what worked, or was there anything that you thought, oh, I'd like to, you know, adjust these things? Like what what was the sort of what did you learn from that production?

[16:20] Conor McPherson: Well, I think I learned that probably I had gone about it in a way that was absolutely, you know, laid, you know, hugely laden with risks, which I hadn't ever really thought about too much because everything we did was just if it felt right, then that was what we had to do, and there was no very little logic going on.

[16:37] Gordon Cox: And is that the risk part?

[16:39] Conor McPherson: But there's very little logic going on. Maybe, but no, probably no, that was probably the right thing to do. But what I learned, the risk was that I realized as we were coming towards previews and sort of, oh god, an audience is gonna watch this. And there was a f and we hadn't sold any tickets. And um is Bob Dylan known in the UK?

[16:59] Gordon Cox: Oh, sure. I mean, people know yeah, they would know who he is.

[17:02] Conor McPherson: Yeah, but it was just I think the idea of a Bob Dylan musical just sounded like a bad idea. It's just it's a horrible idea, you know. So um we opened to the previews, and I remember the first preview and the previews were sold out, but we hadn't sold any tickets for the rest of the run. It was gonna be like a 12-week run or something. It was like, and I was like, oh no, and I heard that I was oh no, this is gonna be a disaster because it's like a big thousand seat theater, the Old Vic. And I thought there's gonna be like 50 people here every night, and this is gonna be oh horrendous.

[17:30] Conor McPherson: So the first preview, um, I was watching it and I was like, oh, okay, it's kind of working. And when the interval came, I ran out the back and I ran up to the green room, and uh I didn't want to hear what anybody in the audience was saying because I was so terrified that they would just be saying it was terrible, you know. So I went up to the green room and uh there was a Tannoy, you know, and I could hear the so you could hear what's happening in the theater, but I could hear this buzz, it sounded like a beehive. And I thought, oh, there's there's a buzz, there's energy in the in the theater. People are like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah talking. So I went back down, I thought, oh maybe you know, so well everybody's kind of stayed.

So we then did this second half, and as we came to the end of it, I thought, well, if they start to shift about, we're in trouble. But they stayed with it right to the end, and once we finished their reaction to it, I knew that it worked.

[18:26] Conor McPherson: And um then as it moved forward and opened, then it very quickly sold out. And so but at the but the risky part was I thought, my god, I never thought for a second, oh wait a minute, shouldn't we be making some concession to uh either putting Bob Dylan's hits in or anything like that? And I realized, oh god, we hadn't done any of that.

[18:49] Gordon Cox: Was that a was that a conscious choice to not lean into the better known songs to sort of almost lean away from them?

[18:55] Conor McPherson: Not really. I mean it was just no, it wasn't. I mean um no, it just I and I you know I became very interested in a lot of the places that people don't go with Bob Dylan, sort of into the like late 70s and into the eighties when he became a born-again Christian. His uh his you know, he he was there's at least one song from those that period, right?

[19:15] Gordon Cox: No, we've got more than one.

[19:17] Conor McPherson: But uh it's like that was a very, very interesting time for instance. So I just became fascinated by his passion at in places like that and um and really using those songs. So um yeah, but then yeah, in at that early time I was like, oh my god, what have we done? But the songs are so beautiful.

[19:34] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. And now here at the public, you're working with an entirely American cast.

[19:39] Conor McPherson: Right.

[19:40] Gordon Cox: Um how has working do they do they have a relationship with the material that is at all different from uh the UK cast that you were working with? Is there something I guess particularly American that they respond to in the music?

[19:54] Conor McPherson: Well, I think in the music and in the and in the whole thing, for them, I mean when we did it in London, it was mostly Irish and British people doing it. So we had that layer of extra effort and also uh ignorance because we were not uh not Americans. Um but then coming here, there's a kind of effortlessness about what the performers bring to it here, because they just Bob Dylan is like I don't know, it's like it's so in their DNA and their understanding, but also being Americans, they are they just they just they make it feel very integrated, very they they just dig into it. Um so I suppose for me the fear has always been like not being an American. I'm like, well, I just hope it kind of has a ring of something, you know, that is not going to alienate an American audience.

[20:44] Gordon Cox: Did it this is the first play you've written that's set in America, yeah?

[20:48] Conor McPherson: Yeah. Um did it was it ever a possibility that it would not be set in the US? Did was there something about this that felt really like it needed to be here?

[20:57] Conor McPherson: To be honest with you, like usually the first idea I have is the only idea. There won't be another one. You know, so it was it was like you know, if if it's gonna be set in a boarding house in Duluth, that it's or it's it no it I'm never doing it, you know. I don't I don't have another idea.

[21:10] Gordon Cox: Right.

[21:10] Conor McPherson: Uh so you know that was that was kind of it, yeah.

[21:14] Gordon Cox: Right. Uh and so as I mentioned you directed uh Girl from the North Country and you've directed a lot of your work um and other work on stage why was that a role that you wanted to step into either in general uh and and or uh with Girl from the North Country in particular?

[21:15] Conor McPherson: Well in general I did it really because I started very young and I was in college and I started writing plays and I didn't know anyone who directed plays and it was just simply a question of having to just get on with it and do it um and just learning on the job. And then with Girl from the North Country initially it was supposed to be Matthew Warchus was supposed to direct it and we did a workshop together and then Matthew um got sucked into doing Groundhog Day and uh he said to me I think you should direct Girl from the North Country and I said well I've never directed a musical and he said it's the same as directing a play he said except there's just a lot more decisions.

[22:01] Gordon Cox: Is that correct having directed the play with music now?

[22:06] Conor McPherson: I think I think for me it was kind of very similar probably maybe not for everybody but I think he knew that I would probably enjoy it and you know so do you enjoy it? Does it make you did it make you think oh maybe I'd like to try my hand at another musical or a more traditional musical or anything like that?

[22:24] Conor McPherson: Well a lot yeah I mean for me it just makes a lot of sense you know like people singing on stage now whereas before I don't know that I I could have figured out how to make that work. I think there's a way for me that it works and um yeah I could see myself doing it again.

[22:40] Gordon Cox: Yeah and you've done a lot of uh work for the screen as well both on film and on TV. How does do you do you adjust your writing or the kind of stories you tell or the way you tell a story um for the various medium that you're working in?

[22:56] Conor McPherson: Um yeah, I guess they're very they are very different. They're very different kinds of dreams in a way. And if you know it's the and that chemistry is is so important. So I probably do tend to do work in the theatre which is designed to have a lot of gaps for the audience to come to give them the space to come and meet it and and and make something of it. Where I think with screen often you have to spell things out an awful lot more, you know.

[23:37] Gordon Cox: Speaking of screen, I noticed for the first time as I was preparing for this that uh you worked on the screenplay for the Artemis Fowl movie that's coming out.

[23:44] Conor McPherson: That's right.

[23:45] Gordon Cox: That is a fun series of YA books, and that seems like it was that fun to work on.

[23:49] Conor McPherson: Yeah, really fun to work on. Really warm, charming stories by Owen Colfer and um yeah, and Ken Branagh is directing it.

[23:57] Gordon Cox: Oh yeah, by the way, a Kenneth Branagh's directing it.

[24:02] Conor McPherson: Just really down to earth, and also as well, he's such a he's such a great actor too. It's like um, and for me, like I spend so much of my time working with actors, I think we we had a lovely, you know, a lovely, lovely camaraderie.

[24:14] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Does speaking of working with actors, how does your work as a director influence the way you write for the stage?

[24:21] Conor McPherson: Uh probably because I do tend to think of the what I'm writing as as as being a you know an event that's happening as opposed to being words on a on a page. And I think actors are very surprised with how quick I am not to really care if they say the lines properly, you know, or or you know, I would be very quick to cut things or to say change things because it's really about the the feeling that they're giving off. So I'm like if you know if they're rehearsing and they say oh wait I said that wrong I'm like you know don't stop it doesn't have to be right it just has to it just has to be good.

[24:50] Gordon Cox: Right.

[24:50] Conor McPherson: It doesn't have to be right. Just just say anything. Just keep going you know and um so I think probably I'm in a funny way maybe maybe a director who writes actually.

[25:09] Gordon Cox: Oh yeah yeah yeah. Do you you've touched a little bit on this or answered this a little bit already uh but your work often gravitates toward the kind of supernatural or kind of toward the mysterious and even this has some uh you know a few touches of that here and there I feel like um what draws you to that subject matter um I think probably the feeling that um the supernatural and the natural is all one thing really because I d I don't see that real life is any less mysterious than um then I suppose you know quote unquote spirituality to me it's kind of everything is sort of m kind of mind blowing if you really stop and think about it. We don't have a clue what consciousness is or what existence is or what the universe is or what time is we don't we don't know anything about any of that stuff.

[25:59] Conor McPherson: So we sort of live in a giant supernatural mystery.

[26:04] Gordon Cox: And it sounds to me at least based on uh some of the other things you've said that the theatre is sort of the best place to look into mystery is to explore mysteries like those.

[26:04] Conor McPherson: Well there's something I think about the you know about the structure of of the ritual of theatre which is very ancient and um has has arisen from you know religious ceremonies because it does create that kind of strange trance like thing in the dark. It does. You sit in the darkness and the story unfolds up there and the light of the altar. But really, I always think it's the darkness surrounding what's happening up there is the power, and I'm trying to get that darkness into and onto the stage. But you know, even in the way I would light something, it's always like trying to pull the dark in, trying to pull the dark as as much to the center of the whole thing as possible, you know.

[26:48] Gordon Cox: Do you have a favorite ghost story?

[26:51] Conor McPherson: Uh favorite ghost story. I don't know, but I the f I was at a thing the other night where someone was saying that um they were talking to people who had worked on a renovation of the uh the public theater at Aster Place, and um they there was a storm and the people working in the um working in in the building, they couldn't go home, they were sort of stranded in the overnight, and there was like no power and it's all that they just had to sort of sleep in there and um apparently they saw a ghost when they were there, and I just thought, wow, that's cool.

[27:22] Gordon Cox: That's excellent. What did the ghosts do? Did they uh did they expire?

[27:26] Conor McPherson: But apparently a few of them said that something happened that was really really freaked them out, and um I just think oh that's great because you know I mean that building's gotta be haunted. It's gotta be haunted. So and it's great that we're doing plays in there, yeah.

[27:36] Gordon Cox: Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[27:38] Conor McPherson: Um you so you're here in New York through around the opening of Girl from the North Country. What's next for you?

[27:43] Conor McPherson: Um, well, I've been very busy uh in the last couple of years, including doing Girl from the North Country, and now when I do this, I have kind of created some space to uh to just do some original work. So I just want to go back and just just do some new new ideas, you know.

[28:01] Gordon Cox: So I'm not really taking on any kind of like commissions or that kind of thing.

[28:05] Conor McPherson: Theater, are you thinking?

[28:06] Conor McPherson: I'm thinking theater, yeah.

[28:08] Gordon Cox: All right. Well, we will we look forward to seeing what it is.

[28:11] Conor McPherson: Okay, thank you.

[28:11] Gordon Cox: Thanks, Conor. Thanks for being here.

[28:12] Conor McPherson: Nice to talk to you.

[28:13] Gordon Cox: Thanks, Gordon. Cheers.

[28:20] Gordon Cox: That was Conor McPherson, the writer and director of Girl from the North Country, the new play with Bob Dylan music now running at Off Broadway's Public Theater. If you like what you've heard on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are dispensed. On the next episode of Stagecraft, we're back to a weekly schedule with a special episode recorded at Variety's Power of Broadway event, featuring a conversation with Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller and Schubert Organization President Bob Wankel. Until then, see you at the theater.

[29:06] Support for this podcast and the following message comes from City National Bank, providing highly personalized service and proactive advice to entrepreneurs, professionals, their businesses, and their families since 1954. Strong client relationships combined with sophisticated solutions have made City National one of the most highly recommended financial services providers. The people you trust trust City National. Learn more at CNB.com.