Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA
Through the bleakness and hardship, there’s an omnipresent glimmer of hope the threads throughout Conor McPherson’s brilliant Girl from North Country as a stepped-upon group of tyrannized survivors of the Great Depression fight to discover what it is they want in their lives and how they can pull themselves up to make it happen in a heartless world that no longer has a place for them. Read more…
Anita W. Harris – LA Theatrix
Binding these travelers together in writer and director Conor McPherson’s “Girl from the North Country” – continuing at the Hollywood Pantages through June 2 – are Bob Dylan’s soulful tunes hauntingly arranged by Simon Hale for on-stage piano, bass, guitar, violin, mandolin and drums, with lyrics given new resonances by a vocally stellar cast. Read more…
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeatLA
Musicals can have many different formats, but the two most prevalent structures these days are the traditional and the jukebox. The traditional (incorporating Sondheim, because his changes are now part of the musical lexicon) is the usual Broadway show, anything from Annie to Sweeney Todd. The jukebox is a show spotlighting the music of one artist, usually with a very loose story tying the songs together, but it’s basically just an excuse to play 25 ABBA songs in a row. One might imagine that Girl from the North Country, a production which features the songs of Bob Dylan, would fall into the jukebox category. But au contraire, my friend! Girl is neither traditional nor jukebox. Conor McPherson’s show is more experimental, a mostly downbeat drama with occasional Dylan songs shoehorned in, many of which seem inorganic to the story. The current touring production of Girl at the Pantages tries very hard to make this combination work, but although the cast is clearly talented, the results are unfortunately uneven. Read more…