In 1934, during the height of the Great Depression, everyone was searching for something. In a time-weathered guesthouse Minnesota, an unlikely group of strangers comes together with little other than hope and a need to survive in common.
Only a song can shake off the dust for one group of wayward souls-and old dreams may hold the promise of new beginnings. As they come in and out of each other's lives, their stories awaken with passion, fury and extraordinary beauty. Reimagining the music of Bob Dylan as roof-raising ensemble pieces and soul-stirring solos, playwright and director Conor McPherson weaves this story of faith, family, heartbreak, and love.
To its credit, Girl From the North Country doesn't offer up a false, crowd-pleasing closer; it's as sober as the historical moment it depicts. (It's like Mamma Mia! on downers.) By the end of the show, the random encounters have left some characters broken and others uplifted; one of them dies. But like a Dylan show with strangely rearranged songs and a baffling set list, it leaves you both humming its songs and puzzling over what you just witnessed.
In case you hadn't noticed over the last five or six decades, Bob Dylan can't be contained, not by any particular genre, persona, creed or even voice, and the same can mostly be said for Girl From The North Country, the musical, written and directed by Conor McPherson, that transports the hits and deep-cuts of a peerless songbook to a Depression-era, crossroads-of-humanity boarding house. Opening tonight in a Broadway production that both focuses and somewhat constricts the musical that seemed more physically expansive, more tonally dreamlike, in its 2018 Off Broadway incarnation, Girl From The North Country nonetheless remains a revelation in its uncanny interpretations of even the most familiar Dylan songs.
Videos