Girl from the North Country (2022 edition)
Description
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...
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 Conor McPherson, and later transferred to the West End, Broadway, Australia, Ireland and toured the UK.
Reviews
'The idea is inspired and the treatment piercingly beautiful… two formidable artists have shown respect for the integrity of each other's work here and the result is magnificent'
- Independent
'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
'Gut-wrenching, glorious… Dylan's songs are brought to life in a spellbinding show'
- Radio Times
'A show that transports the soul… dialogue flows into a Dylan song and back again in a way that deepens the emotions of both… McPherson has come up with something bewitchingly original. It's pure stage magic'
- The Times
'Ravishing... [Bob Dylan's songs have] never sounded quite so heartbreakingly personal and universal at the same time... the most imaginative and inspired use to date of a popular composer's songbook in this blighted era of the jukebox musical... this is as close as mortals come to heaven on Earth'
- New York Times
'Moody and heartfelt as an old movie, a tale harsh as Miller or Tennessee Williams, storytelling resonant and drawing deep... Dylan and McPherson are both poets. Here they meld, mesh, converse. It’s a privilege to watch'
- TheatreCat
'Beguiling and soulful and quietly, exquisitely, heartbreaking. A very special piece of theatre'
- Evening Standard
'The play and songs weave around one another, reflecting, deepening, revealing, in exquisitely soulful harmony… shades of O'Neill and Steinbeck... dreamlike and bleakly beautiful'
- Broadway World
'A populous, otherworldly play that combines the hard grit of the great Depression with something numinous and mysterious'
- Telegraph
'Extracts a certain Steinbeckian strand from Dylan’s oeuvre… marries the myths of Dylan and the Depression into something timeless and elegant – a stark evocation of the American fundament'
- Time Out
'Original, beautiful and moving, combining the starkness of Steinbeck with haunting lyricism to create something restless, desperate, hopeful and sad'
- Financial Times