Dylanesque ‘Girl from the North Country’: Glowing in the mind
'Girl from the North Country' is at the Belk Theater through Sunday, Oct. 6
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on Oct. 3, 2024. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. And check out this link for Toppman’s archive of reviews in the Ledger.
'Girl from the North Country' revives Bob Dylan's music in a top-of-class jukebox musical
“Girl from the North Country” is set in Duluth, Minn., during the Great Depression, and weaves 28 Bob Dylan songs throughout the show. (Photo courtesy of Blumenthal Arts)
by Lawrence Toppman
Basic jukebox musicals in the “Jersey Boys” vein offer a chronological “then we recorded this hit” approach packed into a simple biography. More complicated ones weave a songbook in and out of a person’s life to reveal psychological states, the way “Tina” does for Tina Turner.
But the best of them re-purpose music catalogs to create a new narrative unrelated to the composer or lyricist, taking us to a world familiar for its soundtrack but unfamiliar for its people. At the top of that class, you’ll find “Girl from the North Country.”
The show I saw two years ago in Broadway’s Belasco Theatre has been adapted for a national tour that came to Charlotte this week. The proper venue would have been Knight Theater, whose 1,192 seats are only about 10 percent more than the Belasco’s. At the Belk, it loses some crucial intimacy and occasional pieces of dialogue. It’s meant to feel claustrophobic — it takes place entirely in a boarding house — and you don’t always get that sensation.
Otherwise, it has the same emotional kick, sense of mystery and startling surprises. Conor McPherson, who wrote the book and directed both at the Belasco and on tour, is in his own way as ambiguous as Bob Dylan, whose numbers flow through the show like a turbulent current. (Dylan had nothing to do with the production, other than giving it rights to 28 of his songs.)
What are we to make of the adopted daughter of the boarding-house owners, whose pregnancy suggests a visit from the Holy Ghost? Is her mother justifiably silent and reproachful toward her wandering husband, mentally disturbed or both? Is one character’s offstage death an accident, a murder or something in between? McPherson, like Dylan, lets us draw our own conclusions.
“North Country” won just one Tony Award in 2022, but that one made sense. Simon Hale collected it for his orchestrations, which use 1930s instruments to plant us firmly in Duluth, Minn., in the heart of the Great Depression. (The 83-year-old Dylan grew up in Hibbing, 75 miles to the northwest.) Complete songs alternate with snippets, medleys, instrumentals and background music in an ever-changing tapestry.
Some numbers comment overtly on what’s happening: A pair of separated lovers quietly express their sentiments in “I Want You,” while a boxer wrongfully accused of a crime (he says) passionately renders “Hurricane,” which morphs into the wary “All Along the Watchtower.” Just as often, a song has more oblique purposes. When the semi-silent mother bursts into “Like a Rolling Stone,” she could be raging at her nemesis, herself or the entire bruising world. (Mare Winningham got a Tony nomination in this role, and the tour’s Jennifer Blood is her equal.)
McPherson delights in slapping down our expectations. The elderly shoe store owner who offers to marry the pregnant girl could be a predator — she thinks so — but he has a conscience and a heart made, if not of gold, of some more durable metal. The doctor who narrates the show may be big-hearted and gentle but is awfully casual about illegal drug use, including his own.
Characters bluster and lie and philander and con each other. If this play has a theatrical ancestor, it’s Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh,” where the inhabitants of Harry Hope’s bar settle deeper into unhappy grooves while dreaming up impossible scenarios for themselves.
McPherson doesn’t get quite that dark, leaving us with the sweet-natured “Forever Young,” then an unlikely coda to two characters’ stories, and finally the uplifting “Pressing On,” rousingly rendered by Carla Woods as a thwarted heiress who accepts her fate. But this late turn towards joy doesn’t keep us from realizing the wind blowing from the north country is chilly indeed.
If You’re Going: “Girl from the North Country” runs at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St., through Sunday. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews about three times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.
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