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“Girl From the North Country” begins with the house lights blazing. No rising curtain or pulsing overheads are necessary to draw the attention to center stage at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, where a lone actress croons the opening number, “Sign on the Window.” Joining her, the chorus conveys the existential emotionality of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s oeuvre. But as the onstage band quiets and dialogue by Conor McPherson — the musical’s director and playwright — replaces Dylan’s lyrics, it becomes clear that McPherson is aware that the cultural weight of the Nobel Prize-winning lyricist-composer’s artistry dwarfs his own.
The playwright includes nearly 30 of Dylan’s songs within the show’s two-and-a-half-hour run time, leaving little room for his own writing. Yet, within the constraints of a script searching for the right balance between Dylan’s music and McPherson’s dialogue, “Girl From the North Country” achieves what any jukebox musical sets out to do: It elevates well-known music by framing it within an original setting.
The musical is set in Duluth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan’s birthplace, during the Great Depression. The year is 1934 and the Laine family boarding house, soon to be foreclosed on, is bustling with lodgers: long-term stays and new arrivals, families and strangers. Fixtures of the house include its proprietor Nick Laine (John Schiappa), his wife Elizabeth (Jennifer Blood), their son Gene (Ben Biggers), and the couple’s adopted daughter Marianne (Sharaé Moultrie).
Most of the scenes occur within the boarding house, a setting conveyed less by the mesh walls that frame the actors than by the homey and rustic props scattered across the stage. A piano sits on stage right and a drum set on stage left, to be used by various actors and instrumentalists. The nonchalant manner with which the players pick them up conveys the boarding house’s communal yet brusque atmosphere, amplifying the beatnik roots of Dylan’s work. At times, the walls give way to a large scrim onto which Lake Superior is projected to focus in on the Midwest setting that shaped Dylan’s childhood. The drop is black and white, both a reflection of the character’s grim circumstances and a reminder of the soft beauty of the natural world.
Rae Smith’s costumes likewise offer insight into the characters’ outlooks on life: The Laine family, worn down by trying financial times, are dressed in washed-out blues. A dash of color reveals that the family has not yet lost all hope: The characters with the most passion for others — the mothers, lovers, and fighters of the show — don the most color, garbed in reds and flowing romantic pieces. As the show reaches its close, increasingly bright colors are phased out, indicating a dip in morale. As Nick despairs in the second act, he swaps his blue waistcoat for a black one.
The show’s design clearly executes its thematic messaging, exploring the motifs of hopelessness and grief that Dylan’s music introduces. The dialogue, however, fails to render these topics with the subtlety that the set and costumes manage. Certain scenes are harrowing — an admission of patricide, touching moments of romance — but forced Midwestern accents and overacting muddy the emotional impact of events vital to the plot.
Just keeping track of the multitudinous plot points can also prove challenging. “Girl From the North Country” is rife with tumult: From murders to wrongful convictions and all manner of unhappy relationships, the play features characters at the bleakest points in their lives. Marianne’s pregnancy weighs on Nick, as does Elizabeth’s dementia, and the two conflicts color many of the other troubles throughout the show: Marianne’s search for a husband, Nick and Elizabeth’s loveless marriage, and Nick’s affair, to name a few.
Yet it is not only the Laine family who struggles, but virtually every other character to cross the stage. Their plot points are occasionally half-baked and compete with each other for time. With so much going on, it is difficult to connect to any one character based on the script alone. It is here that McPherson makes the wise choice to bow to Dylan and allows the music to flesh out his characters’ feelings.
Rather than explain Gene’s moodiness through exposition, for example, the director dedicates a duet to the son and his lost love, Kate (Chiara Trentalange). The piece is touching, made only more so by Trentalange’s nightingale-like voice, and showcases Gene’s softer side better than explicit dialogue would. As in the duet, many of the songs are delivered by a single vocalist at first, before more voices jump in.
The cast’s standing as vocalists and expressive actors ensures that none of these solos drag as the numbers continue. Both emotion and vocal power flow through the score, most notably as the first act closes and Blood’s Elizabeth delivers a rattling “Like a Rolling Stone.” Blood portrays Elizabeth with a perfect balance of caprice and indignation throughout the song. The character flails while gripping the microphone stand tight and glares at the audience, yet she seems perfectly comfortable — even gleeful — in taking center stage. When left with just lyrics and her own physicality to work with, Blood offers intrigue with a clear depiction of Elizabeth’s blithe outlook on her own illness.
Other tracks, however, benefit more from McPherson’s blocking and Mark Henderson’s lighting choices than the cast’s moving performances. When a lone character sings, they are positioned under a single spotlight, with the ensemble behind and backlit in shades of blue. The backup vocalists are lit only in silhouette, and their wailing harmonizes with the lead to suggest their suffering is shared.
What “Girl From the North Country” lacks in dialogue, it more than makes up for in its musical numbers. Regardless of issues within the script, it is a delight to hear Dylan’s music delivered by a talented ensemble, and even more so to hear his lonesome ballads transformed into shared lamentations. Within the show there is sorrow, and in this sorrow there is beauty. Nowhere are these two themes better balanced than in the tender renditions of the songwriter’s masterpieces.
“Girl From the North Country” runs at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through March 24.
