Much of the music of central Appalachia – the mountainous region linking Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas – derives from the Scots-Irish people who settled there. It was the Ulster immigrants, passing down their boisterous tunes and melancholy ballads, who gifted the US some of its first iterations of country music.
Composer Finn Anderson and director Tania Azevedo have used that journey to tell a musical story across generations. Our starting point is New York couple Sarah and Alix, moving into their new home and Marie Kondo-ing a mystery box sent to Sarah by a dying aunt. It turns out to contain audio tapes tracing song origins back up the family line, a reconnection to Sarah’s West Virginia roots that is first unwelcome and then increasingly transformative.
No kidding: this music would move anyone. Anderson’s score powerfully evokes the source material it is exploring, and the ensemble’s singing positively electrifies the traditional songs – The Four Marys, Handsome Molly – that he incorporates and adapts with the fluidity that has accompanied them down the centuries.
In a nearly all-female cast, Kirsty Findlay breaks the heart as Cait, a spirited but troubled Scottish minister’s wife living in the 1600s. Meanwhile Yna Tresvalles teases the wit from the script as 18th-century Londonderry teenager Jean (“If God didn’t want us tempted, he wouldn’t have invented sailors”). It’s their respective pregnancies that fuel the show’s themes of motherhood and choice – the act-one number, Unexpected Visitor, is a standout – and which rather outshine the contemporary story.
With brilliant support from Sian Louise Dowdalls as Jean’s vociferous sister and Ally Kennard – who brings a vital empathy to all the male roles – it’s hard not to find yourself wishing these characters back on stage in some of the New York scenes. Aunt Betty emerges from her largely narrative role only late in the day, and the ending delivers its message with all the subtlety to be expected of a voice from the grave.
Still, there’s no faulting any of the vocal performances in this full-throated, folk-energy production (not least in a stirring second-half flatfooting number). It’s a worthy tribute to the music it loves – here’s hoping the show can share it more widely.
• At Southwark Playhouse Borough, London, until 21 March
