Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY at ASU Gammage

BroadwayWorld Guest Contributor, David Appleford, tells it like it is in this review of the Tony Award-winning musical, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY. The production runs through August 25th at ASU Gammage in Tempe, AZ.

The new 2024/25 season of touring Broadway productions presented at ASU Gammage in Tempe began this past Tuesday evening with the Tony Award-winning musical, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY.

The show, which remains in performance in Tempe until August 25, has enjoyed a huge following on both sides of the Atlantic. It was conceived and developed in 2017 at The Old Vic in London before transferring to Broadway. Yet, despite its popularity, for some reason, the musical has failed to resonate with audiences outside of musical theatre devotees. Like most things in showbiz, it may have much to do with timing.

Its Broadway run, which began in 2020, coincided with the pandemic. The show opened on March 5. Lockdown hit Broadway on March 12. The production didn't resume until over a year later, October 13, 2021. With these prohibitive false starts and monumental obstructions, it's little wonder that GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY has yet to find instant regional name recognition in the way that London and New York audiences found it.

The songs are taken from the  Bob Dylan catalog of music. While they were written between the '60s to the mid-80s and meant to reflect the time and year in which they were originally released, the musical style of presentation, adapted by Simon Hale and performed on instruments of the time, is surprisingly effective when used to reflect the bleakness of the Depression in 1934.

The setting revolves around the large cast of characters assembled at a Duluth, Minnesota boarding house one evening in November 1934. Each character we meet has a story to tell with an obstacle to overcome. There's the owner, Nick (John Schiappa) who is facing foreclosure on his property, plus he may or may not leave his wife and walk away from his guesthouse altogether. Then there's Nick's wife, Elizabeth (Jennifer Blood) who is navigating through the early days of dementia but is aware enough to know of her husband's intention to leave her and take one of his boarding house guests with him, the widowed Mrs. Neilson (Carla Woods).

Plus there's a varied collection of other characters that drop by the guesthouse, each with their conflicts to tackle as they try to overcome the traumas of the Great Depression and survive daily life in the best way they know how. The identity of the girl from the show's somewhat intriguing title is never fully revealed – the ensemble of down-trodden characters has no central figure – though it's possibly Marianne Laine (Sharae Moultrie), the pregnant, adopted daughter of the family that runs the boardinghouse.

Written and directed by Conor McPherson, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY doesn't feel like other jukebox musicals. If anything, with its engrossing dialog, delivered with a heightened sense of heartbreaking realism from an excellent touring ensemble, you're never quite sure how best to describe the production. Is it a jukebox musical, a drama that wants to be a musical, or a play with music in it?

The musical numbers – which range from Dylan's hits such as Like A Rolling Stone to several lesser-known titles - often feel as though they might have been accurately written as songs of hope and reflection for the time. But what surprises the most is that many don't. You're never quite sure why Elizabeth would be singing Like A Rolling Stone. And that may become an issue with audiences as they try to determine how some of the songs fit into writer McPherson's storyline, particularly when Hurricane or All Along The Watchtower, sung undeniably well, suddenly begin with no obvious link to the drama unfolding.

There's no doubt that the show's high production values, its subdued atmospheric period look and its musical interpretive sound are first-class. But ultimately, as the narrative progresses, the use of Bob Dylan songs – himself a native of Duluth, Minnesota - comes across more as a curious gimmick; something to help market the show rather than based on any real creative, interpretive choice.

ASU Gammage ~ https://www.asugammage.com/ ~ 1200 S. Forest Avenue, Tempe, AZ ~ 480-965-3434

Photo credit to Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade: Aidan Wharton and the cast

To post a comment, you must register and login.