‘Bob Dylan Musical’ enjoyable and soulful
‘Songs with a play’
By Matt Trueman
‘Bob Dylan: the Musical,’ or something more sophisticated? Picking his way through the legendary songwriter’s back catalogue, Irish playwright Conor McPherson has come up with a portrait of Depressionera America in “Girl From the North Country.” Dylan’s music sets the mood and, if it sometimes feels like a setting in search of a story, the production at London’s Old Vic taps into that time. It walks a fine line between a beloved literary tradition and something more resonant - a reflection of our own recession. The blend slips down easy: enjoyable and soulful.
Set in a guest house in Duluth, Minnesota — Dylan’s boyhood home — “Girl From the North Country” gives us glimpses of the lives of those passing through, the flotsam and jetsam of Dust Bowl America. It’s really a series of short stories rubbing shoulders, sharing a table in a temporary home. There are runaways and romantics; sinners and snake oil salesmen; drinkers down on their luck and out on their own. Were McPherson a lesser writer, this would quickly feel ersatz: John Steinbeck Country or Carson McCullers’ backyard. Instead, it’s a loving homage with a neat turn of phrase and a tang in the air. Dylan’s songs becomes the soundtrack of the Great Depression, heartfelt and hopeful but mostly kicking their heels.
The proprietor is Nick Laine, a good man getting by. He charges what he can, and gives credit where he can’t. Played by Ciaran Hinds, his face reflects the times: his lips have seized up into a permanent downturn. His wife Elizabeth (Shirley Henderson) has succumbed to early dementia. His son Gene’s hit the bottle, unable to find work, let alone write for a living, and he can’t find a decent, young husband for his pregnant, black, adopted daughter Marianne (Sheila Atim).
Among those under his roof are a slippery clergyman, selling a stash of cheap bibles, and a black boxer, Joe Scott, just out of jail. Respectable businessman Mr. Burke (Stanley Townsend) is out of cash and on the road with his wife and disabled son in tow. Nick’s mistress Mrs. Neilsen (Debbie Kurrup) dangles dreams of buying him a bigger guest house. An old widower (Jim Norton) stops by every so often, trying to tempt Marianne into a marriage of mutual convenience.
The “jukebox musical” is coming of age in London. Preposterous as it is, “Bat Out of Hell” elevates Meat Loaf to the level of opera, while in “Nina,” Josette Bushell-Mingo has arranged Nina Simone’s songs into a searing solo, part tribute gig, part protest.
Vintage
“Girl from the North Country” might be the most grown-up yet. Officially, it’s a play with songs; in practice, songs with a play; a fusion of drama and gig. McPherson dots his guest house with vintage mics and musical instruments. His script doesn’t crowbar in hits or bunnyhop between songs. No “Blowin’ in the Wind.” No “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” The songs serve the show, not vice versa. Some unfold in full, like musical monologues. Some are just snippets, segues from one scene to the next.
Dylan’s never incidental, though. His music sets the mood, unhurried but restless, downbeat but uptight. There’s a reason they call it the Great Depression, and Dylan’s slow numbers reflect long, empty days. Everyone’s too busy trying to scrap a living to actually live, let alone love. It’s a world of widowers and heavy hearts. Sam Reid’s Gene sings “I Want You” with the ex-girlfriend leaving town, a quiet sob of a song. “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” speaks for almost everybody, and there’s a heaviness in the air, the sense of storm clouds brewing; a “Slow Train” coming in. McPherson makes abundantly clear that in troubled times, families are dead weight - extra mouths to feed, more care to bestow. Love is a luxury, but loneliness can kill.
Ten years after our own financial crash, all of that rings true. A show that seems to romanticize the last major recession, conforming to the cliches of a literary tradition, starts to reflect our reality. Guests talk of tents lined up along the roadside and bright, young men queueing for work. Dust Bowl America bumps into Austerity Britain. You recognize the rhythms at play: the weight of debts, the fraying tempers, the hopelessness.
It seems altogether appropriate that John Lee Beatty’s simple but eminently serviceable wooden set for “Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure” — now having its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center, with an eye on Broadway — resembles nothing so much as the interior of an outbuilding on some rural homestead. That’s because every element of this spirited production feels infused with the sort of industrial-strength enthusiasm one normally associates with old movies in which someone exclaims: “Hey! My uncle’s got a barn! Let’s put on a show!”
That impression is reinforced by Gregory Gales’ amusingly faux-tacky costume design, which incorporates bottle caps, aluminum soda can tabs, and what appear to be recycled blankets and draperies. There’s also copious doubling, tripling and quadrupling in several roles by the merry men and women assembled for the 12-member cast. The audience is seemingly intended to imagine this dynamic dozen (along with a five-member onstage musical ensemble) have wandered into a rustic spot, improvised suitable attire, and conspired to play fast and loose with legends of the Bandit of Sherwood Forest. All of this may sound hokey, but the DTC staging makes it easy to be a believer.
“Hood” comes down to us through the centuries — a witty prologue reminds us just how many legends, books and Hollywood swashbucklers have spun off from the mythos — but this retelling has been smartly reconstituted for 21st-century sensibilities by librettist Douglas Carter Beane (who has directed the DTC production) and composer Lewis Flinn, the duo behind Broadway musical “Lysistrata Jones.” It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory (and, yes, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor), but with some sharp new wrinkles.
In the medieval world according to Beane (“Cinderella,” “Xanadu”) and Flinn, Maid Marian (a beguilingly feisty Ashley Park) is less a distressed damsel than a resourceful collaborator — one who, not incidentally, is a better archer than the Robin formerly known as Robert (Nick Bailey). The balladeer Alan A’dale (effectively played with just a hint of modern-day pop-rock strut by Ian Ferguson) strums a guitar boldly emblazoned with the same slogan that once adorned Woody Guthrie’s instrument of choice: “This machine kills fascists.” Jacob ben Widmar dials it up to 11, coming across as the love child of Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly in a scene-stealing portrayal of Will Scarlett as a cunning martial artist with a fabulous fashion sense. (RTRS)