A baby boomer, a Generation Xer and a Gen Zer went to see a Bob Dylan musical. Guess who liked it the most?
Answer: none of the above.
We left “Girl from the North Country,” the new touring Broadway show now playing at Seattle’s Paramount Theater, feeling mostly baffled and a little bummed out. (We watched the whole thing. A few people left at intermission, and others made a quick getaway between the final number and the curtain call.)
What was that show about? What was the point? Why didn’t they take all that talent and just put on a concert instead?
To be clear, the quality of the production was good. The singing was lovely. But the story – set in Depression-era Duluth, Minn. – was kind of odd and mostly downbeat, with a few laugh-out-loud lines to distract from the heartbreak.
Who would be a target audience for the show: certainly big Dylan fans — as long as they’re open to the idea of a show being written around the songs they love. In fact, Josh LaBelle, executive director of Seattle Theatre Group, wrote in the program: “It would be fair to label me a Bob Dylan freak.”
LaBelle went on to say, “When I heard there was a musical in development based on Bob Dylan’s music, I felt both excitement and skepticism.”
I saw at least one Bob Dylan T-shirt on a man in the crowd. I wonder how he liked it.
There’s not much to recommend this show to a young person, I don’t think. For their cultural edification, they should know about Dylan and certainly about the Depression, but there are other ways to learn.
Here’s what my 16-year-old said:
I thought that the vocals and the set were both great. The story was good, but ultimately it was a little bit slow, at least for my taste. None of the characters were very well developed, and I had a hard time following it sometimes. Ultimately, I lost interest in it.
I think that this is a great musical, just not for me or my age group as it is complex, adult problems and plot points rather than something I could relate to or understand.
The show runs only through June 30 at the Paramount. Details here. More theater: “Spring Awakening” runs through June 30 at the 5th Avenue Theatre. (It’s not exactly upbeat, either.)
