Review: THE GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY at Her Majesty's Theatre

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Friday 25th March 2022

What do George Bernard Shaw and Bob Dylan have in common? They are both Nobel Laureates in Literature and both have a musical based on their work. My Fair Lady is a rags to respectability fairy tale. The Girl from the North Country is a theatrically imaginative and musically expressive production, impressively cast. It is an absolute emotional downer. There are no heroes, there are no survivors.

It's 1934, Duluth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan's birthplace. The Great Depression has America by the throat. A rundown and badly managed guesthouse is a haven, a way-station, for desperate men and women.

Nick Laine, Peter Kowitz, has no business sense and faces foreclosure. His wife Elizabeth, Lisa McCune, lives in a world of her own. Their son Gene, James Smith, is an alcoholic layabout and the adopted daughter, Marianne, Chemon Theys, is black, and their maid of all work.

The Burke family arrives, on the run from a tragedy that becomes clearer as their story unfolds. Tony Coglin and Helen Dallimore are Mr. and Mrs. Elias, Blake Erickson, is their brain-damaged hulk of a son. He has violent tendencies. Joe Scott, Elijah Williams, is a boxer unfairly imprisoned and recently released. The Reverend Marlowe, Grant Piro, is a bible seller, not above blackmail. Katherine Draper, Elizabeth Hay, and Mrs. Nielsen, Christina O'Neill, have pasts and no future. There is an illusory inheritance in the mix. In walks Mr. Perry, Peter Carroll, boot-maker and an elderly and unlikely candidate for Marianne's hand. He's probably deaf, as well, which explains the tendency to shout. Add Dr. Walker, Terence Crawford, medical advisor, pharmaceutical distributor, and narrator.

Check out that cast, a blend of years of experience and some dazzling new talent. The backup ensemble can pretty much be seen as understudies, or swings. Curiously, though we do get to see them clearly in the second half, they spend most of the first half as silhouettes, purged of identity.

Writer, Conor McPherson, has the director credit, but I suspect that Resident Director, Corey McMahon, is doing the hard work of keeping the show up to its very high standard.

Musical director, Andrew Ross, has Mark Harris on bass, Cameron Henderson guitars, Leah Zweck on violin and mandolin, and the luxury of Helen Dallimore on drums.

It's not all D and G, doom and gloom. There's tenderness in the duet for Marianne and Joe, a lively Thanksgiving hoedown, and a standout performance of Duquesne Whistle from Blake Erickson as Elias, white-suited and back from the dead.

Let me say that I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. This is more apathy than antipathy. I lost touch with his work years ago, but do recognize the best-known songs when I hear them and they are in this show. I tend a little towards Leonard Cohen. While so many of the songs in the show are new to me, Dylan lovers will be delighted to hear their favourites among the lesser-known songs in his vast catalogue being brought to life on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre. I look forward to a tutorial from a Dylan-loving friend who is seeing the show in a few days time. I'll try to see it again.



Photography, Daniel Boud.

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