GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY- Don't Think Twice, It's Not Alright by HUXLEY WESTEMEIER

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 GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY- Don't Think Twice, It's Not Alright by HUXLEY WESTEMEIER




There are certain shows that just don't make sense. I'm not talking about the set design, the music, or even the cast. In the newly launched Broadway tour Girl From the North Country, all of those things are fine. Not stellar, and there are definitely major technical issues, but the overall live performance is acceptable and I don't feel the need to go in depth about the design elements. They're fine. Where the show falls apart is the basic concept. Blending popular Bob Dylan songs with a highly dramatized play that attempts to shoehorn in as much saturated commentary about racism, abuse, and mental health in the mid twentieth century as possible just didn’t work for me. Especially when the stellar music is only used as a disjointed and often shortened interlude between scenes and the dramaturgical choices, including the Minnesotan accents which are nearly impossible to comprehend, distract from what could have otherwise been a wonderful production. 


There's no doubt that Bob Dylan is a fantastic songwriter, but the selections in Girl are downright bizarre. For starters, there's a five piece band (playing beautifully live on stage and a part of the show, a wonderful thing to see) consisting of a piano, guitar, violin, bass, and percussion. But the limited instrument selection doesn’t have enough tonal variety, and halfway through Act 1 the "Tony-Award Winning" orchestrations start to blend together and become repetitive, despite the musicians working effortlessly with their limited material. While popular crowd favorites, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Forever Young”, are well performed, they don't make any sense thematically and only occasionally inch the story along. The choice to use condenser microphones combined with audio effects, perhaps as a way to feel more accurate to the historical context and create an older feel, meant that for the most intimate and memorable songs the audio wasn't adjusted properly and the mix was so awful that entire phrases blended together, at least from my seat in the higher back balcony.


The plot line is convoluted and bland. The official tour website describes the show as "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". That's a very optimistic description. In reality, the characters aren't particularly memorable.The script creates a soap-opera-esque atmosphere with too many characters introduced at one time, and feels like a first draft that went straight to the stage. Even the overarching commentary on mental health and sexual abuse feels distant. After every potentially emotional or heartbreaking moment we're treated to a musical interlude that just doesn't set the right tone. The fact that the author/director Conor McPherson isn't from Minnesota (he's an Irish West End director) only makes the accents and strange references (including an obvious mention of the Vikings) feel even more disconnected. 


Girl From the North Country isn't a terrible show. It just doesn't represent Minnesotan stories accurately and doesn't meet the expectations of a professional Broadway touring production in contrast to the thematically similar and incredible production of To Kill a Mockingbird. The tour is launching in Minnesota and the technical crew have had weeks to make sure everything in the theater is perfect. There shouldn't be sound issues in any seat in the house, and especially not for a production dedicated to one of Minnesota's most popular musicians. This show caters mainly to non-theater fans of Bob Dylan's music, and I strongly believe this shouldn't be their first experience with theater as an art form. I've been going to professional theater productions for years and this production was a disappointment with the unprofessional elements and inaccessible storyline. I'd recommend skipping Girl from the North Country, and wait for any of the other productions coming later this season. It's just too tiring and confusing of an evening to recommend. So stay home, turn up your speakers, and put on a Bob Dylan album. You'll enjoy it more.

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