Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, The Old Vic
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan
America is depressed. It’s the early 1930s and the community of Duluth are dreaming big whilst trying to get by on a shoestring. Right in the middle of it all is a guest house, where travellers collide, their stories strewn out across the kitchen floor…
The show has been around since 2017, when it made its world premiere at The Old Vic. Due to its success, it transferred to the Noel Coward Theatre for an official West End run. In 2018, it premiered Off-Broadway for a limited time. It has since been revived many times and has performed at various venues across America, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK from 2019-2023. The current revival at The Old Vic is the first revival since 2023.
The design of the show has quite a naturalistic feel to it. A river scene is projected onto the back wall and moving set pieces, with a rural 1930s aesthetic, create the main room of the guest house. The period-accurate costumes complete the overall look, highlighting that this is intended to be a period piece. Though the show designs aren’t particularly inventive, they do look beautiful.
It is worth noting at this point that we feel that due to the fact that the book of the musical, written by Connor McPherson, doesn’t naturally blend well with Bob Dylan’s songs, the blending of these two elements comes down to the director. When well considered, these elements merge to create a dark show, which can be devastatingly brutal to watch.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for the current run at The Old Vic, which is also directed by McPherson. The songs seemingly come out of nowhere and feel out of place amongst the action on stage, meaning that the songs don’t progress the story, nor do they say much about the characters themselves outside of slight glimpses. More often than not, they offer judgements without us having enough information to be able to make a judgement call ourselves.
Not to mention that this lack of integration makes the musical feel like it’s scared of being a musical. It’s unable to justify why the story is a musical and gives us the feeling that the writer really wanted the show to be a play with music. This being said, the musicianship is exceptional and the cast are all incredibly strong singers.
This production can also be seen as problematic in regards to its treatment of the character of Elias, showing that whilst the treatment of this character is accurate of the 1930s setting, the musical hasn't aged well for a modern audience. Elias is a character with unspecified profound and multiple learning disabilities. In ‘Duquesne Whistle’, due to an event (which we won’t specify so as not to reveal a spoiler) he is presented as suddenly free of all of his disabilities and the tragedy of it as being a good thing. Not only is this representation incredibly difficult to watch, but we found that it runs the risk of confusing the audience. Some people thought the scene was a celebration and were very shocked when they realised what had actually happened.
We understand that due to how dark this show gets, tonal variation is needed, however we feel that this was not the right way to go about it. Sometimes it is worth committing to the darkness if the script calls for it, and pushing it as far as it will go can create even more of a deep impact.
Speaking of which, we found the show lacks impact. We can see the intentions for the show to be warning us about the current times that we are heading into, but the follow through lacks drive. Big moments aren’t given enough pause and actions feel lacking in significance, meaning that we struggle to empathise with or care about the characters on stage.
Musically gorgeous but story-wise, lacking in grounding and emotional impact. Well intentioned but very disjointed.
** Two stars
Reviewed by: Megan O’Neill
