Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "bob-dylan"

Girl from the North Country by Conor McPherson
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan

NEW YORK, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is pleased to announce the publication of Girl from the North Country by Conor McPherson, with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan. In Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson beautifully weaves the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan into a show full of hope, heartbreak and soul. It premiered at the Old Vic, London, in July 2017, in a production directed by McPherson.

“Bob Dylan’s back catalogue is used to glorious effect in Conor McPherson’s astonishing cross-section of hope and stoic suffering… It is the constant dialogue between the drama and the songs that makes this show exceptional.” —Guardian

Duluth, Minnesota. 1934. A community living on a knife-edge. Lost and lonely people huddle together in the local guesthouse. The owner, Nick, owes more money than he can ever repay, his wife Elizabeth is losing her mind, and their daughter Marianne is carrying a child no one will account for. So when a preacher selling bibles and a boxer looking for a comeback turn up in the middle of the night, things spiral beyond the point of no return…

“Beguiling and soulful and quietly, exquisitely, heartbreaking. A very special piece of theatre.” —Evening Standard

Conor McPherson is an award-winning Irish playwright. His best-known works include The Weir (Royal Court; winner of the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play), Dublin Carol (Atlantic Theater Company) and The Seafarer (National Theatre).

Bob Dylan, born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, is one of the most important songwriters of our time. Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. He released his thirty-ninth studio album, Triplicate, in April 2017, and continues to tour worldwide.

For over 55 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for U.S. theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture, and promote the professional not-for-profit theatre. TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research, and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 15 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its Member Theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field, and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org.

Girl from the North Country
By Conor McPherson
With music and lyrics by Bob Dylan

120 pages
October 2017
$14.95

Girl from the North Country
Conor McPherson
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan
Paperback:112 pages
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (November 28, 2017)
ISBN-10:1559365625
ISBN-13:978-1559365628
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-North-Cou...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

In so many ways, reviewing the script of a play just as it sits on a printed page seems so disingenuous. To me, the script is a one-dimensional slice of a collaborative project that includes the writer, director, actors, stage-hands etc. etc. who collectively bring the intended experience to life.

In the case of Girl from the North Country, while we get the dialogue from the playwright as well as the song lyrics from Bob Dylan woven throughout the play, we don’t get the music the characters sing or hear as the drama progresses. In short, the script, complete as it may be, can only hint at the flavor of the full production theatregoers might experience.

Girl from the North Country originated as a project proposed by Dylan himself to Irish playwright Mcpherson. It premiered at the Old Vic, London, in July 2017, in a production directed by McPherson. The story is set in a boarding house in Duluth, Minnesota in 1934 during the economic ravages of the Great Depression. As with many of the characters in Bob Dylan songs and reputedly Conor Mcpherson’s previous plays, we see a cast of characters essentially lost and lonely in a setting very reminiscent of Thornton Wilder or Eugene O’Neill.

The core of the cast is the Laine family, centered around Nick Laine who’s the owner of the boarding house where everyone congregates on a snowy Thanksgiving. His wife Elizabeth is losing her mind, their daughter Marianne might or might not be pregnant, and their alcoholic, literary son Jean needs to find some sort of direction.

Roomers and transients include a preacher who’s more interested in selling Bibles than preaching from them, a former boxing champ on his way to Chicago, the town doctor, a widow, and a once prosperous couple with their mentally-stunted son. While the story is set on Thanksgiving, we see no celebratory feast. Instead, the characters mill around and make sandwiches.

All these people are representative types of a specific time and place, making Girl from the North Country a bit of an unusual period piece considering all the songs were composed in the ‘60s or later. Reading reviews of the play as performed in the Old Vic, I gather a musical arranger adapted the songs to fit the styles of the Depression. Another element readers of the text can’t appreciate.

Still, this hybrid of drama and music becomes something of an allegorical tale as all the themes should resonate with anyone from any time and any place. Especially those who once had something and then lost it, whether security, love, or earthly possessions. I look forward to seeing the play, perhaps on stage or on PBS or the like, to fully take in all the characteristics of a unique production. Bear in mind: the Dylan songs provided McPherson inspiration and perhaps some ambiance and atmosphere, but the lyrics contribute mainly oblique commentary on the characters or circumstances. This isn’t a musical where the songs are organic parts of the story nor are they an excuse to trot out a greatest hits retrospective a la Carole King. In fact, we hear very few popular tunes but rather hear bits and pieces from often very obscure Dylan deep-cuts. After all, they’re there to support a story, not be the drama itself.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Jan. 27, 2018:
https://waa.ai/zhjv