The Vanishing Bridgegroom

The Vanishing Bridegroom by Judith Weir

Director: Lee Blakeley

Conductor: Timothy Dean

Designer: Adrian Linford

Lighting Designer: Mary Fisher

Production Manager: Davy O’Neill

Assistant Conductor: Michael Bawtree

Saturday 25, Monday 27, Wednesday 29 June and Friday 1 July 2005 7.15pm

NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE

There will be no interval.

Synopsis

The Inheritance and The Disappearance are taken from Popular Tales of the West Highlands Vol 2, (1860) ed. J F Campbell of Islay. The Stranger is taken from Carmina Gadelica Vol 2, (1900) ed. Alexander Carmichael. The majority of text is taken directly from these sources, from poetry collected in further volumes of Carmina Gadelica, and from other Celtic sources. All the literary sources for this piece – stories and poetry – were originally collected orally, in Gaelic.

I The Inheritance

Told by Donald Macintyre, a cottar, Benbecula, 6 September 1859

Characters

Bride Emma Smith

Lover Luis Garcia

Bridegroom Patrice Lamure

Doctor James Arthur

Narrator Douglas Nairne

Dying Man Abram Edewards

Youngest Son Christopher Elliott

Middle Son Austin Gunn

Eldest Son Anders Östberg

Bride’s Father Aaron McAuley

Robbers Nuno Miguel de Aurujo Pereira, Ross McInroy

Good Robber Dominic Peckham

A man dies, but his legacy is missing: one of his three sons must have stolen it, but which one? The Doctor investigates by telling the sons the following parable:

A woman, forbidden to marry her lover, is unwillingly married off to a richer man. When the richer man learns of her forbidden lover, he sends her back to him. But when she arrives, the forbidden lover, on learning of the marriage, sends her back to her rich husband. On her way back through a thick wood, she is robbed, but in the end one of the robbers has an attack of conscience and takes her home safely to her rich husband.

“Now”, asks the Doctor of the three sons, “out of all the people in this parable, whose behaviour do you most admire?” “The rich husband” says the eldest; “The forbidden lover” says the next; “The robbers who got away with all the money” says the youngest – and sure enough, it is he who has stolen the legacy.