Girl From The North Country
Trying to categorise this show for the clarity of a review is a little like herding cats. It simply won’t go where you want it.
Musical theatre fans should note that it is NOT a musical (nor does it claim to be). The songs are quite separate, sung into old-fashioned stand microphones, and don’t advance the narrative in any way (though sometimes they try to reflect it).
Dylan fans should note that the songs are nothing like you are used to hearing. Sometimes that’s a good thing. You discover soaring melodies that you never knew were there, but it’s fair to say that the raw folk honesty of Dylan’s poetry is somewhat lost.
The neatest tag to put on this label-defying production is that it is a play with additional music. Except that it doesn’t stand up as a play alone, too many anachronisms, sketchily drawn characters and too much of Mr McPherson’s voice and not the characters.
Still, there is much to love on show: some beautiful performances, one of which is unique and flawless, gorgeous singing from some of the best voices you will ever hear, a brilliant lighting design by Mark Henderson and simple but effective movement (not dance) by Lucy Hind.
McPherson is a theatre Tour de Force internationally. His play The Weir is a modern classic, and this story of life (in vignettes) in a boarding house in Minnesotta during the Depression (1930s) holds great promise.
There’s Nick Laine (Peter Kowitz) angry and frustrated that he is powerless to stop his life ending up in the toilet, and trying to keep afloat the boarding house, his wife with advanced dementia, his mistress and his self-esteem. It SHOULD be HIS story – but it isn’t, it’s just one of many, and so we don’t connect or empathise with him. In the end, he’s just another human whose life is trashed by bleak circumstance. Mr Kowitz is an excellent actor, but there are many other of his performances I have enjoyed more.
As his pathetic and yet endearing demented wife, Lisa McCune is sublime. It is perhaps the finest performance I have ever seen on a stage, anywhere at anytime (and I’ve seen Maggie Smith, Judy Dench and Glenda Jackson among others). Lizzie can be bitingly bitchy, guilelessly outrageous, make you laugh, tear your heart out and reduce you to tears all in less than five minutes. It’s worth the price of a ticket just to see this actress become Elizabeth Laine, whose truth is constant even when all that was her being is lost. She is simply remarkable, and her voice, like pure water from a crystal spring, just gets better with age.
Here I must disclose that I have known Miss McCune’s work for 25 years – and have always believed it to be under-rated by most. I don’t believe I am biased, I simply recognise excellence when I see it.
Two more marvellous actresses in Helen Dallimore and Christina O’Neill shape underwritten roles into something special. Greg Stone is excellent as Mr Burke, and Blake Erickson is wonderfully enigmatic, both passive and threatening as Elias. His 2nd Act number is one of the highlights of the show. It’s a marvellous cast and kudos to Chemon Theys and Elijah Williams for their careful dressing of what could have been two token stereotype black American characters.
However, the anachronisms around race, damage the credibility of McPherson’s dystopian Armistead Maupin-like view of American life. It’s impossible to believe that a white family in a small midwestern town would raise a black foundling daughter in the 1920s and 30s - or that Burke would willingly shake Joe’s hand, or Nick would allow him to sleep on the living room floor. It’s this disparity between what is grittily real, and what is pure fantasy, that grates on me – but I stress it is only my opinion.
It's also a shame that a character is made a boxer simply so that the song Hurricane can be included, albeit it is Dylan’s great hit. The story even gets TWO full pages in the programme, though it has nothing to do with the interaction of the characters.
I am not a traditionalist. I love risk taking in the theatre. We need to dare to be brave if theatre is to survive.
Perhaps I am simply too old to risk so much; or too critical of a script that needed another draft; or perhaps reviewing from the back row of the stalls, under the circle overhang, where nuance and subtlety are in hibernation, affected my reactions to this much-lauded work.
Don’t take my word - see it for yourself, if only for the marvellous cast of Australian actors and musicians.
Coral Drouyn
Photographer: Daniel Boud
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