![]() It's all the more exciting then, that the Conor McPherson-penned musical Girl From the North Country seems to have captured lightning in a bottle where others have previously missed the mark. ![]() Though the show set season ticket sales records during its opening run in San Diego the volume of negative reviews led the production to close after just a short few weeks' run.Ĭlearly, it's difficult to do a Bob Dylan-based theater production right. More recently, Broadway choreographer Twyla Tharp attempted to unite Dylan's music with contemporary ballet and interpretive dance for her 2006 production The Times They Are A-Changin'. Everything in this exquisite Broadway transfer is in perfectly rendered unison.The task of trying to build a theatrical production around the sounds and ethos of Bob Dylan's illustrious catalogue and career has been attempted several times since the 1960s.Īrchibald MacLeash was the first – the playwright tried to enlist a young Dylan to pen some Americana songs for his stage show Scratch – but creative differences sank that ship before it left the harbor. His songs did not add to what we saw in front of us. It feels more generous and whole, less choppy.Īt the Public, this critic felt that-as beautifully sung, staged, and played as his music is-Bob Dylan can feel a little in the way of the drama in Girl From the North Country. ![]() The performance also breathes bigger, and so do its actors. The characters and sets feel less subsumed in atmospheric clutter. What has changed in Girl From the North Country in its journey from the Public to Broadway? The increased size of the stage helps this show of, quite literally, many moving parts. Burke (Luba Mason), and their son Elias (Todd Almond), who is central to one of the most stunning pieces of Broadway lighting so far this season. Burke (Marc Kudisch), addict-in-waiting Mrs. Meanwhile, the Reverend’s malignancy comes to the fore in his treatment of the desperate Mr. McPherson doesn’t craft a traditional love triangle here but something more heartbreaking and strange, especially when the story follows Nick and Elizabeth’s marriage to its ultimately dark destination, and their and their son’s lives far beyond the temporal bounds of the play. Neilsen (a strong and tender performance by Jeannette Bayardelle)? Sanders plays him ambiguously as both anchor and agitator. Robert Joy plays the town doctor (obviously quite busy in this town) and is also our narrator, keeping his most eagle eye on Nick, and so he should. Happy dances can become aggressive and menacing. The characters need to be in this place, and they need to escape from it too. Songs of celebration and rallying community are sung, and then back we go into the murkiness of blackmail, racism, violence, mental illness, marital strife, financial hardship, and dysfunction. Like the play, Gene is an elusive mix of emotions. Gene, the Laines’ son (Colton Ryan), is a mixture of feckless, racist, aggressive, and scared. Just who is this Reverend, and who is the handsome and self-contained Joe Scott (Austin Scott), who blow into the guesthouse one stormy night? The latter is keen to help Marianne (Kimber Elayne Sprawl), the Laines’ black adopted daughter. Happy dances can become aggressive and menacing.” “The characters need to be in this place, and they need to escape from it too. She also sees certain things piercingly clearly when the moments are right-such as when delivering the perfect condemnatory zinger to the fast-talking, creepy, and slippery Reverend Marlowe (Matt McGrath). She is both vulnerable, lost to another world, a nervy presence floating and then frozen in the aspics of illness and grief. Winningham is the flinty, transfixing heart of the production. Sanders plays Nick Laine, the guesthouse owner, dutiful and stoic, and also cheating on his wife, Elizabeth (Mare Winningham), who is mentally ill. Music director Marco Paguia and the band sit partially concealed on the stage, and sometimes in the thick of the musical action. Mark Henderson’s lighting takes us through every shade of day and night, and illuminates the characters en masse as if in a roiling painting. There is its smooth staging and Rae Smith’s atmospheric design, Simon Hale’s gorgeous orchestrations, and the actors’ wonderful singing and playing of instruments, which they do with apparent ease as they navigate through McPherson’s dense script and complex direction. Just visually, Girl From the North Country is a clever treat. Enjoy the likes of “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965), “Slow Train” (1979), “Sweetheart Like You” (1983), and a final, rousing “Forever Young” (1974), sung variously as perfectly honeyed and harshly raw. At the Public the songs felt like weird, opportunistic add-ons.
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