Bob Dylan
The Music Which Inspired Girl From The North Country

THE REVIEW

Conor McPherson seemed quite puzzled when Bob Dylan's management contacted him, proposing that he write and stage a theatrical show, a true musical built around the music of the great singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota. Firstly, it's a real peculiarity, considering the fact that Dylan is generally reluctant to have works made about his person and his musical output (as far as I know, he only expressed appreciation for that beautiful film, which is "I'm Not There" by Todd Haynes, and which I suggest to everyone, especially for the incredible performance by Cate Blanchett); secondly, he was aware he was facing two main problems: the first is that Bob Dylan has an enormous musical output, which includes about 650 songs; the second is that, clearly, he would have to create something that was both original and had the approval of Bob Dylan himself. Nevertheless, he immediately got to work and drafted a screenplay set during the Great Depression in America in the early 1930s, thus before Bob Dylan was born (1941). To his great surprise, he received positive feedback from Dylan's entourage, which confirmed their appreciation and gave him the go-ahead to proceed as he saw fit, even in the choice of songs.

The result was the realization of "Girl From the North County," a title that is clearly an homage to Bob Dylan's 1963 song, which will be on stage at London's West End until March 24, 2018. The story is, of course, set in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1934 and revolves around the stories of Nick Laine's family, the owner of a shabby guesthouse, married to a woman named Elizabeth who suffers from a form of dementia, and father to the 20-year-old Gene, who dreams of becoming a writer and drowns his romantic disappointments in alcohol, and their adopted daughter Marianne, African American and five months pregnant.

The show has been a great success so far, much to the personal satisfaction of McPherson himself, a director born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1971, who has historically devoted more to theater than cinema, always receiving great recognition for his work. The show, compared by critics to the film productions of Bob Altman, obviously features songs performed by the actors according to arrangements adapted to the musical's needs. The album "The Music Which Inspired Girl From The North Country," released by Sony and published this past January 12, is a collection of 24 songs selected by Conor McPherson, which he considers to be the main ones inspiring the creation of his musical. Clearly, the collection doesn’t add anything to Dylan's production, just as it's evident that it contains what are considered great classics along with some "unusual" choices. Even though this definition is then open to debate: after all, which Dylan song hasn't been discussed and dissected in every possible way over the years? The only real curiosity, ultimately, is whether Dylan will ever show up to attend a staging of the show.