West End Girl from the North Country Star Katie Brayben on the Pleasure of Bringing Dylan Classics to Life

Katie Brayben won a 2015 Olivier Award for her star-making performance as Carole King in the West End premiere of Beautiful. Since that time, she shifted genres to star in a revival of the non-musical drama, Honour, and hopped continents to do a summer 2018 run in San Francisco of the new musical, A Walk on the Moon, opposite Jonah Platt. Drama and music combine to thrilling effect in Brayben’s current venture, Girl from the North Country, which opens its third London run on December 16 at the Gielgud Theatre. The ever-delightful Brayben was settling into her new dressing room perch when Broadway.com phoned for a chat.

After your lauded immersion in the music of Carole King, does it seem a logical next step that you are now delivering the Bob Dylan songbook in Girl from the North Country, which tethers his music to an original story by the Irish writer-director Conor McPherson?
I almost feel like we attract the things that we like, that we’re interested in, and that fit us as performers, and I think that’s probably what has happened here. It’s about [a performer’s] energy attracting certain things.

Was your energy drawn to Dylan?
So much of the musical landscape of my upbringing was Carole King, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell—but also Muddy Waters and Memphis Slim. My folks are blues singers and artists so my whole landscape musically has really been American music; I have been influenced a lot by American artists.

Is that actually you in the new poster art for the show, with sunglasses and your hair blowing in the breeze?
It is me and was shot during the second week of rehearsals when, of course, you don’t yet know what you’re doing and they put me in a costume that I don’t wear in the show [laughs]. But it was actually quite fun: Conor started playing the guitar and I sang “Like a Rolling Stone,” and we played around with it. Maybe when the run is finished, they'll let me take the poster home.

How amazing is it to get to deliver that song onstage, not to mention another Dylan classic, “Forever Young”?
Listening to Dylan’s “Forever Young” is just extraordinary, so to get to interpret these songs every night really is a gift—and that our genius musical supervisor and arranger Simon Hale has brought out another side to these songs so that they have their own originality within the piece. It’s a real pleasure to bring something to life in a completely different way.

Had you seen Girl during either of its previous West End iterations, at the Old Vic or the Noel Coward Theatre?
I saw it both times but wasn’t thinking about being in it! It was just something I went to see and really enjoyed, and when this came up, I was kind of surprised actually because it wasn’t something where I thought, “I must make sure I get seen for that.” I just feel very lucky to be involved in another piece that has such amazing music.

Was it good in a way that both of Girl’s earlier London runs were some while ago so that you could approach the project fresh?
Yes in that this doesn’t feel at all like a takeover. Our company was put together to do two months in Toronto, which we’ve done, and here we are in London. Conor works with everybody’s energy. You never feel like you’re recreating something; there’s none of that at all.

What do you make of the character of Elizabeth Laine, which won a 2018 Olivier Award for its originator, Shirley Henderson? [Elizabeth is seen slipping into early-onset dementia in the story set in Depression-era Minnesota.]
Elizabeth has a unique relationship with the music in the piece: it’s almost as if the music is coming through her, as if she is her own sort of radio. I feel as if she’s sort of in her own world but the question the audience is absorbing is how much is she or isn’t she with it? She’s got searing moments of lucidity but the brilliance of the writing is that nothing is tied down. Conor leaves it very free, which is scary but also thrilling.

You were certainly surprised when Carole King showed up at a performance of Beautiful: are you bracing yourself for a similar appearance this time around from Bob Dylan?
Well, you never know; he’s a man of mystery! The thing with Carole was that I didn’t want to know she was there because I couldn’t play someone who’s in the audience, but I’m not actually playing Bob Dylan in this show, so it would be different—and brilliant!

Changing gears, what was it like to co-star on the West End in 2016 opposite Jesse Eisenberg in his own play, The Spoils?
That was one of my most favorite things I’ve done. I love things that are incredibly naturalistic where the audience is like a fly on the wall, and Jesse is obviously amazing. He’s actually a huge fan of musicals, and I’d really love to do one with him—wouldn’t that be fun?

Has it been a deliberate choice on your part to mix and match plays and musicals?
Like I say, it’s about what appeals, and I know generally when something piques my interest. I’m a huge fan of straight plays, which I know is such a broad thing to say, but I like it when you can sit down with a writer or the director of a play and chat about the content. That feels very different to me than standing up and singing on demand, which is what happens when you audition for musicals. I find that quite stressful.

That said, don’t you feel like a logical Bobbie in the newly female-led Company at some point soon?
I saw that at the Gielgud, where I’m sitting right now, and I absolutely loved it. I’ve always had a soft spot for Company and played April [in 2011] at Southwark Playhouse.

And if you could follow up your experiences singing Carole King and Bob Dylan with an ideal third music legend-led musical, whose music would you choose?
It’s always Joni, it’s got to be Joni. I don’t think she’d let us but if she did, that would be great.