Review: More Play With Music Than Musical, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Sets Bob Dylan's Music As A Backdrop Conor McPherson's Bleak Depression Era Tale.

Saturday 8th January 2022, 7:30pm, Theatre Royal Sydney

The eagerly awaited pairing of Conor McPherson's writing and directing with the music of Bob Dylan's career, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY arrives at the Theatre Royal, Sydney. More play with music than musical, this work transports the audience to American Depression Era life with Dylan's catalogue used to echo the emotion while not particularly utilizing the songs to drive the narrative.

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY is the product of producers Tristan Baker and Charlie Parsons (Runaway Entertainment) approaching Bob Dylan with the idea of gaining approval to have a work of theatre created utilizing Dylan's music, and their subsequent selection of Irish playwright Conor McPherson to create a work with the freedom to chose from Dylan's entire catalogue of work to score the original story. The result is a story that takes the audience into a 'Guest House' (think boarding house style long term accommodation rather than holiday spot) run by Nick Laine (Peter Kowitz), a man struggling to hold it all together to support his wife Elizabeth (Lisa McCune), a woman unable to contribute to the operations of the house due to her advanced dementia, his son Gene (James Smith), a twentysomething unemployed aspiring writer with an alcohol problem, and Marianne (Zahra Newman), his five months pregnant 19-year old adopted daughter who refuses to name the father of her baby. The guesthouse has had four long term tenants in the form of widower Mrs Nielsen (Christina O'Neill) and the Burke family which consists of Frank (Greg Stone) and Laura (Helen Dallimore) and their son Elias (Blake Erickson), a man with the mental capacity of a child and strength that he doesn't fully comprehend. Late one night in late November two more travellers round out the occupants of the house in the form of travelling bible salesman Reverend Marlow (Grant Piro) and the mysterious young African American Joe Scott (Callum Francis), but even with all the beds in the house occupied, Nick is still facing the prospect that the Bank will forclose on the house. The story of the inhabitants of the house is narrated by the family physician, Doctor Walker (Terrance Crawford) as he observes Nick's efforts to marry off Marianne in an incredibly insensitive and inappropriate match with Mr Perry (Peter Carroll), set Gene up with employment, and plot a new life with Mrs Nielsen even while his wife sits in a daze in the wingback chair in the corner of the room.

Visually, this work is captivating in Rae Smith's (Scenic and costume design) ability to evoke the dreary 1934 depression era setting while still giving hints to the Laine's once having financial security with a piano and beautiful lamp setting off the worn-out armchair and miss match of chairs around the dining table. Costumes evoke the era, similarly, showing that the occupants of the house all once had money before the Great Depression swept the country. Simple rearrangement of the furniture on stage combines with the projected backdrops that reinforces the different locations within the house, a bar where the townsfolk gather for music and dancing, and a more general inference of the location of the town of Duluth Minnesota being situated on the shores of Lake Superior.

While the work is generally billed as a musical, it is more a play with music as the selection of Bob Dylan's songs are not used to move the story forward but rather underscore the emotion of the work with a broad connection in a similar way a soundtrack to a movie sits below the drama. Songs are not incorporated into the plot but rather delivered to cover physical movement made without dialogue or echo a scene that has played out with retro microphone stands often bought onstage for the musical numbers and the ensemble seen as backup vocalists around another microphone.

Standout performances for the musical numbers come from Callum Francis who gives a captivating rendition of Hurricane as a reinforcement to Joe's storyline as a wrongly convicted African American boxer, Zahara Newman's reflective Tight Connection to My Heart and Blake Erickson's powerful Duquesne Whistle where the audience is finally treated to his talents. Helen Dallimore, who also accompanies most musical numbers on the drum kit, delivers a fabulous solo in Sweetheart Like You that is infused with emotion and understanding of the lyrics, reinforcing that she has sadly been underutilised in this casting and may have given the role of Elizabeth a better depth, connection, and honesty in both the dramatic espression and Elizabeth's key solo of Like A Rolling Stone than the stilted expression that showed more direction than intuition seen on opening night.

In addition to Dallimore, the strongest dramatic performances came from Newman, Francis, and Erickson along with Peter Carroll as the septuagenarian Mr Perry, and Greg Stone as Mr Burke who all managed a sincerity of expression that felt innate and not forced in even the smallest appearances, reinforced with believable accents and speech patterns. It is acknowledged that McPherson has painted the majority of the characters quite thinly in terms of what the audience manages to learn about them but these performers have managed to express that they've developed a backstory for their characters so their physical reactions, interactions and dialogue is so informed that the audience actually wants to know more of their story which is in contrast to some of the larger roles which fail to connect with the audience because the performer has failed to connect with their character with the requisite degree of sincerity or understanding.

Unlike many other musicals, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY generally does not have the nice happy ending and is a stark look at life in 1930's America in a similar vein to Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill's plays. What at first introduction appear to be the core characters fail to be likeable aside from adopted daughter, an outsider as an African American 'child' in a white family, making this an unusual work as the audience can find more sympathy for Marianne, Joe and the Burke family than anyone else. This is more a collection of wonderfully interpreted Bob Dylan's songs set around a story that feels like it has been shoehorned into the situation but not quite fitting so come for the music and set design more than any other aspect of the work.

https://www.northcountry.com.au/

This production is scheduled to tour to Adelaide (25 March 2022) and Melbourne (29 April 2022) following the Sydney season.

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