Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Dylan and McPherson’s GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY makes strange music that penetrates the soul

• By drediman
• October 4, 2018
• No Comments

The company of Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson’s “Girl from the North Country” at the Public Theater. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Finally, a serious new musical this season worth fussing over. That would be the Public Theater’s production of Conor McPherson’s singular jukebox musical Girl from the North Country, which uses the Bob Dylan songbook to help tell the Depression-era story of the inhabitants of a boarding house in Duluth, Minnesota. Little do these on-edge, profoundly frustrated folks know that each of their lives is on the cusp of changing forever – and not for the better, might I add. Perhaps the most informed of the bunch is the boarding house’s proprietor (played steadily, affectingly by veteran musical theater actor Stephen Bogardus), who’s steeped in debt and will likely have to foreclose on his property by the end of the year (the piece largely takes place just before and after Thanksgiving).

From the moment the lights dim, the musical casts a strange, penetrating spell. Mr. McPherson’s muscular, bleak and clear-eyed book writing is enhanced by Mr. Dylan’s gruff but iconic, Americana-defining songs, and, astonishingly, vice versa. The fact that the Dylan estate allowed Mr. McPherson to access the songwriter’s entire oeuvre is a testament to the reputation and considerable playwriting gifts of this superb Irish playwright (one of my personal favorites). What we see onstage between Mr. Dylan and Mr. McPherson’s independent but synergistic contributions is the very definition of honesty and tough love; there’s no doubt that these characters are very much held captive by life’s harsh, very real realities. But once in a while, breaking through the existential woes of these strung-out (albeit gorgeously-drawn) individuals, the vitality and intangible beauty of life itself thrillingly boosts both cast and audience to nirvana. Indeed, in these unified, fleeting moments, there’s a disorienting life-force onstage that can only be described as divine.

That the work registers much of the time like a play with music, as opposed to one of those formulaic, cookie-cutter musicals one often times finds peddling their wares on Broadway (remember the three new musicals that opened on Broadway this summer?) is attributable to the sensitivity and uncanny grace with which the perfectly cast New York company, which includes some of the city’s most dependable stalwart actors (kudos particularly to a simply heartbreaking Mare Winningham, who plays the proprietor’s mentally-challenged wife), approaches the material. I also attribute Mr. McPherson’s sturdy, no-nonsense direction, which treats his own words and Mr. Dylan’s music as if he were staging Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, a play with which Girl from the North Country has many similarities (e.g., both works boast near-spectral characters who appear to haunt the stage in some sort of Purgatorial coma).

The show at the Public’s Newman Theater, which has been smartly recast for its American premiere, is a remounting of a production that was originally seen at London’s Old Vic Theatre (the show subsequently transferred to the West End for a proper commercial run). If you can’t find a ticket to the current Off-Broadway run – it’s currently completely sold out – there’s hope yet. Word is that the production is moving to Broadway in the spring, just in time for awards season. Either here or there, don’t miss the opportunity to catch this important new piece of music theatre.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY
Off-Broadway, Musical
The Newman Theater at the Public Theater
2 hours, 20 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 23