“Blowin’ in the Wind”
The many fans of the wonderful Irish playwright Conor
McPherson (The Weir,
The
Night Alive) will no doubt be excited to see a new play by him but music
lovers will be even more excited at its incorporation of many classic songs by Bob Dylan.
I wish I could say both of these brilliant talents come off equally as well.
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| Caitlin Houlahan, Colton Ryan. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Even if, like me, you find McPherson’s play—set during the
Depression in a boarding house in Dylan’s home town of Duluth, Minnesota, in
November and December 1934—less than stellar, you’ll probably agree that it
serves aptly as a dramatic context into which Dylan’s songs fit beautifully.
And that’s regardless of the fact that he was born seven years after the
fictional events depicted. Girl from the
North Country, named, of course, after a Dylan classic, is so musically
agreeable that I’m forced to put my caveats about its dramaturgy aside and
recommend it with a five-star rating, whether you’re a Dylan fan or not.
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| Jeannette Bayardelle and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Nick is deeply in debt and Elizabeth has early onset
dementia, which doesn’t stop the otherwise decent Nick from carrying on with Mrs.
Neilsen (Jeannette Bayardelle), a widow waiting for the money her railroad
employee husband left her to clear probate. The Laines’ 20-year-old son, Gene (Colton
Ryan), is a jobless, alcoholic, would-be writer. In one of the plot elements
most difficult to swallow, their 19-year-old daughter, Marianne (Kimber
Sprawl), is black, abandoned by her parents as an infant and raised by the bighearted Laines. Marianne’s problem
is she’s five months pregnant by a Lake Superior boatman who’s sailed off into
the Minnesota sunset.
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| Mare Winningham, Stephen Bogardus. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Filling out the cast of principals are three more characters.
One is Dr. Walker (Robert Joy), the local doctor, who also occasionally serves
as the Our Town-like narrator, speaking
into a standing mic to provide expository background and, at the end, a (posthumous)
summary of what happened to the people we’ve met. Then there’s the thickly bearded
Mr. Perry (Tom Nelis), an elderly “shoe mender,” who offers money to make the
reluctant Marianne his live-in companion (marriage to her being illegal).
Finally, we have Kate Draper (Caitlin Houlahan), the pretty girl who leaves
Gene to marry someone more stable.
This assemblage is further amplified by a gifted four-member,
racially mixed, backup-singing and dancing ensemble (Matthew Frederick Harris,
John Schiappa, Rachel Stern, and Chelsea Lee Williams) who apparently represent
friends and neighbors. The show’s fluid conventions allow moments when the
ensemble members get brief solos, just as the principals often drop their
characters to become part of the ensemble’s choral numbers. They may even play
musical instruments, as when both Marc Kudisch and Luba Mason demonstrate their
drumming skills.
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| Mare Winningham. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
McPherson’s multiple plot strands follow each character, introducing
elements of financial loss, alcoholism, abandonment, loneliness, marital
stress, sexual longing, adultery, romantic heartbreak, fisticuffs, blackmail, gunfire, and death. Still, an ersatz quality keeps invading the premises. It’s unlikely,
for example, that these 1930s Midwesterners would have dropped so many f-bombs.
Also not ringing true is an intrusive moment of magic realism when Marianne
describes the encounter that led to her pregnancy.
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| Kimber Sprawl, Sydney James Harcourt. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Then there’s the racial issue. Given the play’s own emphasis
on race-based biases in 1920s and 1930s Duluth (Dr. Walker cites a notorious
1920 lynching), the idea of a black child being raised by white parents while barely
raising any local eyebrows seems a stretch. Even the entry of the black Joe
Scott into the household, and his casual reaction to Marianne’s presence, doesn’t
feel right. This air of unreality is further underlined by casting a black actress,
excellent as she is, as Mrs. Nielsen, Nick’s lover.
Elizabeth is as
likely to be not only lucid and articulate in one moment as she is in the next
to be mentally distracted. Despite Winningham's winning performance, this often makes it confusing as to just how bad
her condition is. It’s also a bit much to see Nick, inches from his wife, not
only speaking candidly about her to Mrs. Nielsen but openly discussing their
affair as if Elizabeth weren’t there. These are just a few of the problems that
make McPherson’s script less than it might be.
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| Luba Mason and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Rae Smith’s open scene design—movable walls, background vistas,
and furniture—allows for the omnipresent company to move things about in the
semidarkness. Smith’s period costumes are especially on the mark, and little
could be done to improve the deftly imaginative lighting of Mark Henderson.
Some have questioned whether Girl from the North Country is or isn’t a jukebox musical. Of course,
it is, given that the script is designed to allow the insertion of multiple, preexisting,
songs. There are many kinds of jukebox musicals. This one is the type that fits
the songs of a particular performer or writer into a new story, such as
Broadway’s Head
over Heels, with its Go-Gos’ score used for a plot set in the middle
ages.
One of the things that makes Girl from the North Country different is that Dylan’s lyrics often
have little to do with the moments they illustrate, or do so only tangentially.
Even the title song has nothing to do with the play, at least not directly. More
significant than their specificity is their emotional value, which comes across
in the impact made by both their words and music, especially as performed in
this production, where every song sounds freshly minted.
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| Todd Almond and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Public Theater/Newman Theater
425 Lafayette St., NYC
Through December 23