Review Roundup: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Launches North American Tour

The North American tour of Girl From the North Country is now underway, after launching in October in Minneapolis, MN.  

Written and directed by celebrated playwright Conor McPherson and featuring Tony Award-winning orchestrations by Simon Hale, Girl From the North Country reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan as they’ve never been heard before, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”   

 It’s 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota. We meet a group of wayward travelers whose lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life and hope. Experience this production brought to vivid life by an extraordinary company of actors and musicians.  

Read the reviews here!

Jared Fessler, BroadwayWorld: The musical elements were a standout, and the entire cast delivered outstanding performances. The chemistry among the actors and their characters was palpable, tackling profound and challenging subject matters with depth. Jennifer Blood, in the role of Elizabeth Laine, navigated her challenging character with finesse, infusing moments of comedic brilliance that had the audience in fits of laughter. Matt Manual (Joe Scott), Sharae Moultrie (Marianne Laine), and Carla Woods (Mrs. Neilsen) delivered stunning musical numbers, beautifully complemented by the robust chorus from the ensemble.

Jacob Aloi, MPR News: It wasn’t until a few hours removed from the production — and consulting online sources — that the show’s message finally clicked for me. Perhaps the nontraditional structure of the show made the themes go over my head, but the slice-of-life plot kept me from really connecting with any of the characters. This isn’t due to the fault of the performers or McPherson’s script. Rather, I think this show wasn’t meant to adhere to my sensibilities of storytelling.

Jay Gabler, Duluth News Tribune: The playwright, working with Dylan's blessing but not his participation, created the show as a large ensemble piece that captures several characters at one specific junction in history. When you deduct the length of the songs from the length of a two-act musical, that leaves very little time to explore any character's story in-depth. That has the effect of lightening the narrative load on any given song.

Rohan Preston, Star Tribune: From the haunting opening through the rousing coda — and you will want to stay for the gospel-inflected uplift that comes after the plaintive narrative ends — this ballyhooed production is studded with gorgeous moments. But those flashes of brilliance do not cohere into something urgent and vital. And 'Girl' loses its energy and oxygen along the way.

Ross Raihala, TwinCities.com: “Girl from the North Country” will please Dylan fans who are comfortable (and even eager) to hear his music performed in unexpected new arrangements and, again, the show is often fun to watch. But those seeking a coherent and engaging story will have as much luck as a bunch of down-and-out sad sacks in the Great Depression .

Taylor Clemons, BroadwayWorld: This is a true ensemble show. I found everyone on this touring company held their own. For me, the standout performances are from Jennifer Blood as Elizabeth and Sharaè Moultrie as Marianne, her adopted daughter. Blood’s character struggles with mental health. Being 1934, her condition is never given a name, but it’s undoubtedly and totally affected her family as her condition has gotten worse over the years. In one moment, she will have you dying of laughter, and the next breaking your heart. The role is a feast and Jennifer Blood, the fine performer she is, leaves no crumbs. Sharaè Moultrie has a gifted vocal talent, and beautifully delivers my favorite song in the show “A Tight Connection to My Heart”. Moultrie also turns in a wonderful dramatic performance as a well-meaning daughter trapped between two worlds.

Christine Howey, Cleve Scene: At first glance, the play with music Girl from the North Country, now at Playhouse Square, would seem to be the theatrical version of Dagwood's gastric monstrosity. It has too much of everything—too many characters with too many problems set in a too-dreary place, infused with Bob Dylan music that includes too-few of his iconic tunes. And yet, this towering and teetering collection of deliciously downbeat vignettes and mystically evocative songs manages to worm its way into your mind and heart, leaving you licking your fingers and burping contentedly when the 150-minute show is concluded.

Roy Berko, BroadwayWorld: The singing voices are strong, the music well-played, the technical aspects well done. The sound system leaves much to be desired as spoken voices are not well-heard. Don’t expect the usual Broadway glossy set, special effects, fancy costumes, or electronic effects. If you are a Dylan-fanatic, are into his music and/or want to sit back and listen to his songs, while paying a little attention to a slight story, this will be your thing! Me? I’m looking forward to FUNNNY GIRL and COMPANY, later in the season offerings.

Bill Kellert, Nippertown: The cast of 17 has strong voices that reach to the back of theater with pathos and pain that resonates to the core. Sharae’ Moultrie as Marianne, Ashley D. Brooks as Mrs. Neilsen and Aidan Wharton as Elias have provided the production world-class voices and soaring vocals that rise above an already outstanding cast.

Steve Barnes, Times Union: Even at intermission on Tuesday night, I thought I was seeing something remarkable. “I’m loving this,” reads a text I sent after the first act. But notebook entries from the second half include “mystic hoo-hah” and “mawkish looong monologue about getting older. Utterly uninteresting compared w/Dylan.” As we left the theater, I told my companion, “I did not expect the strange, beautiful bus would drive off a cliff after intermission.”

Nicole Ackman, BroadwayWorld: Despite these issues, the national tour production is saved from being a complete slog to watch by its wonderful cast and atmospheric design by Rae Smith. John Schiappa excellently is the glue that binds everyone together as Nick Laine, while Jennifer Blood handles Elizabeth’s somewhat unnerving behavior empathetically.

Greg Kerestan, BroadwayWorld: Written and directed by Conor McPherson, Girl From The North Country is a musical that still feels like a play with music. It's a show aimed more directly at the head than the heart, and jammed with tropes, references and outright character homages to notable works of American Gothic literature. (This, I suspect, is where much of the audience likely got lost: it's often hard to enjoy a genre pastiche when you're neither deeply aware of the genre, or aware that you're seeing a pastiche.) When the show rockets into music mode, often with actors onstage picking up instruments or turning into "radio singers" around a microphone, none of the vagaries of plot and characterization matter much anymore. Like Spring Awakening, this is an impressionistic musical, rather than a representational one: what is being sung matters more as a mood piece and as a soundtrack cut than as actually related to character or situation. Mamma Mia, this is not.

Scott Tady, The Times: "Girl From The North Country" offers strong singing, particularly from the very likable Matt Manuel, who plays boxer Joe Scott, once framed for a serious crime he did not commit, and Carla Woods, who plays Mrs. Nielsen, a widow staying at the run-down boarding house as she awaits a probate judge to authorize a cash payment from her deceased husband's will.

Jordan Soldaczewski, Buffalo Rising: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY was not what I expected. This musical had a lot of good laughs, but also a lot of dreariness. I guess that should be expected for a play set in the depression, but still I expected more hope than what we got. There were several plotlines that didn’t really always intersect, but they did shed light on the complexity of each of the characters. Hopefully reading this will help you stay up to speed on the many characters and their unique storylines while you’re at the show.

Alan Portner, BroadwayWorld: Your personal musical and theatrical tastes will decide whether or not you like “Girl from the North Country. It got very good reviews in London, on Broadway and on its various international tours.

Jeffrey Ellis, BroadwayWorld: The production’s use of the songs of Bob Dylan offers audiences a unique perspective on his body of work, hearing some of his more familiar songs as if new and as yet to be experienced. If anything, Girl From the North Country gives aficionados and even those totally unfamiliar with the depth of his songwriting talents an opportunity to luxuriate in the poetry of his words, and to listen to the musicality of his compositions with an open mind and heart.

Anne Spiselman, Hyde Park Herald: As a Dylan fan, I missed the roughness of his performance style, even though I love covers of his songs by artists like Joan Baez. Despite the folksy edge and period instruments, many of the arrangements were molded into a musical theater mode, so they start to sound much like each other and like the anthems and ballads in so many other shows. The compensation is that most of the ensemble members have marvelous voices, so the solos, group numbers and chorales all sound great.

Dennis Polkow, New City Stage: The end result is something that defies categorization. Is “Girl From the North Country” a musical? Not by any previously recognizable template. A play with songs? Perhaps, but in the world the work inhabits, words and music and songs seamlessly intersect, even if the lyrics are often left to linger at their own pace.

Jamie Flowers, West End Best Friend: Girl From The North Country features a brilliant cast that truly bring their own unique voices to many well-known Bob Dylan classics. The story takes place in the boarding house owned by Nick Laine (played by John Schiappa) who is deeply troubled but trying his best to take care of those he loves. His wife (Elizabeth Laine) is played by Jennifer Blood who has a fantastic voice but has a take on dementia that unfortunately came across as harsh and somewhat cartoonish. The cast that stood out the most are Sharaé Moultrie (who plays a gentle yet firm Marianne Laine), Matt Manuel (who played ex-convict Joe Scott with gentleness and earnest) and David Benoit (Mr. Burke) with Jill Van Velzer (Mrs. Burke) who in addition to acting and singing, also played the drums. In fact, many of the musicans were integrated into the cast which is always fun to watch as they become part of the scenery.

Jacquinn Sinclair, WBUR: That said, the narrative lacked emotional resonance for this audience member. Despite the two-hour run time, there were so many characters, each with snippets of their own backstories, that didn’t have a chance to develop, thus making the show a little incoherent.

Drew Eberhard, BroadwayWorld: Bob Dylan’s music is centrally located in the story, helping to propel the action forward, and allow the audience to take a journey with its characters, but Dylan himself is not a character in the story, nor is he ever mentioned. The story takes place in Dylan’s birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, and its setting is ushered in a mere seven years before Dylan’s birth. All the songs are performed on instruments that would have been readily avail in 1934. McPherson stated that Dylan’s record company approached him in hopes of creating a stage work featuring Dylan’s music, and in no way should be considered a jukebox, but rather a story in which characters reveal themselves, and their circumstance throughout using economic writing.

Rich Lopez, Dallas Voice: The story is compelling but with no real stakes made for an entirely different vibe from most musicals. The showtunes aren’t big spectacles. McPherson’s storytelling was well-crafted but gloomy in tone throughout. The show and the songs never really led to a big moment so in many ways, North Country felt more like a dramatic play with songs rather than a musical.

Average Rating: 69.5%

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