GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY


A quintessentially Irish playwright and a quintessentially American music legend recall the bleakest days of the Great Depression in the most transcendent of new musicals, Conor McPherson and Bob Dylan’s Tony-winning Girl From The North Country, now touring the U.S. with a three-week stop at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater.

The year is 1934, and times couldn’t be tougher for the residents of Duluth, Minnesota, where Nick Laine (John Schiappa) is doing his darnedest to keep his dilapidated guesthouse from impending bank foreclosure, a task made no easier by his mentally ill wife Elizabeth (Jennifer Blood),

his alcoholic 20something son Gene (Ben Biggers), who’s been dating local girl Kate Draper (Chiara Trentalange), or the fact that the Laineses’ adopted African-American daughter Marianne (Sharaé Moultrie) is five months pregnant by a man whose identity she refuses to divulge, or that Nick has been carrying on an illicit love affair with widowed guesthouse resident Mrs. Neilsen (Carla Woods) right under his wife’s nose.

And things aren’t any easier for guesthouse residents Mr. Burke (David Benoit), whose business went under when the stock market crashed, or his platinum blonde wife Laura (Jill Van Velzer), or their intellectually disabled adult son Elias (Aiden Wharton).

The future might look a bit more secure for Marianne should she obey her father and marry elderly shoe mender Mr. Perry (Jay Russell), who’s apparently still relatively well of,

but that’s the last thing Marianne wants, particularly following the arrival of a hunky pro boxer named Joe Scott (Matt Manual), who shows up late one night accompanied by holy-roller bible salesman Reverend Marlowe (Jeremy Webb), a mysterious pair if there ever was one.

If keeping track of a dozen major characters seems more than a a bit of a task, book writer McPherson gives us a thirteenth, local physician Dr. Walker (Alan Ariano), whose job it is to remind us Who’s Who a la Our Town’s all-seeing, all-knowing stage manager.

Girl From The North Country may be following in Mamma Mia!’s footsteps by finding ways to integrate a grand total of 22 previously recorded songs into McPherson’s book, but it should be clear by now that this “Bob Dylan musical” is the furthest thing from such feel-good jukebox hits as All Shook Up, Escape To Margaritaville, or the aforementioned ABBA blockbuster, which may be why some audience members (who apparently didn’t do their preshow homework) chose not to stick around after intermission on opening night.

That was their loss, because Girl From The North Country is as excitingly unlike any other musical I’ve seen in a lifetime of musicals and well worth experiencing all the way through.

Whole stretches of it feel like a straight play (perhaps not surprising given who wrote the book). Other sequences will have you feeling as if you’re watching a music concert or revival meeting or live radio show as cast members vocalize into 1930s-style standing mikes.

All of the above reveals McPherson to be as imaginative and original a director as he is a gifted playwright.

Girl From The North Country is also as visually striking a musical as I’ve seen, particularly when characters executing choreographer Lucy Hind’s eye-catching moves are backlit in silhouette against a suddenly dazzlingly bright upstage sky.

It’s also as thrillingly performed an ensemble piece as you’re likely to see all year, so much so that I hesitate to single out any one cast member in an ensemble completed by D’Marreon Alexander, Ashley D. Brooks, Kelly McCormick, and Kyle Sherman, they are all so dazzling, though if a musical can be said to “belong” to any one performer, Girl From The North Country belongs to Blood’s deliciously offbeat, off-kilter Elizabeth, who brings the house down with what are arguably the musical’s two most recognizable Dylan songs, “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Forever Young.”

Girl From The North Country may have lost all but one of its seven Tony nominations to competing shows like A Strange Loop, Company, and MJ, but it absolutely deserved its Tony win for Simon Hale, who has orchestrated the show for a half-dozen onstage musicians including cast member Van Velzer, who reveals drummer chops to match the singing-acting gifts of her many SoCal star turns.

Rae Smith’s striking scenic design and appropriately homespun period costumes have been stunningly lit by Mark Henderson, with Simon Baker ensuring a pitch-perfect sound design throughout the evening.

Timothy Splain is music director. Rayla Garske, Warren Nolan Jr., Ali Regan, and Danny Vaccaro are swings. Justin Myhre is production stage manager and Hilary Hamilton is company manager.

Those expecting what’s commonly known as a “feel-good” musical won’t find it at the Pantages this time round. Girl From The North Country simply isn’t that kind of show, nor should it be.

If, however, you’re willing to surrender yourself to a heady mix of joy, and pain, and despair, and hope, and the thrill of hearing one brilliant Bob Dylan song after another, you can do yourself no better favor than to spend time with the Duluthians of this most extraordinary and innovative of new American musicals.

Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles.
www.broadwayla.org

–Steven Stanley
May 15, 2024
Photos: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

 

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