PICTURED L-R: Carla Woods, Bonnie DeShong and Hosea Mundi.
A play about survival and love
“Girl From the North Country” is set in Duluth, Minnesota, (the home of Bob Dylan) in 1934 during the Great Depression, in an old boarding house owned by the Laine family. Nick Laine is trying to keep the boarding house open but is dealing with his past demons.
His wife, Elizabeth, mentally flows between the past, hearing voices, but at times has full clarity of her surroundings. Their son Gene is a would-be writer but is too full of alcohol to put pen to paper. Then there is their adopted daughter Marianne, who is Black and pregnant by some mysterious entity.
The people staying at the boarding house are characters within themselves. I did have so many questions (in a good way) leaving the theater that I was happy to speak about them with Carla Woods, who plays Mrs. Neilsen, and Hosea Mundi, who understudies Elias Burke, and Joe Scott, to help me figure it out.
Hosea Mundi summed it up in a nutshell for me.
“It focuses on three different things. The main one being the Laine family and how they’re struggling to maintain the hotel and the whole Elizabeth illness situation going on within the hotel as well. Then you have the Burkes coming to play and their son with a disability that they introduce to the audience. And then you have another layer with Joe Scott and Marianne Vance who fall in love.
“I think that they’re figuring out being the first two Black people that you see on stage and their love chemistry, and then living in this space together, and you have this heated tension. There’s just so much going on, but it all ties together so well.”
Mrs. Neilsen is a widow waiting for her husband’s pension; she also takes care of Elizabeth and is having an affair with Nick. I asked Carla about the backstory of Mrs. Neilsen, as she is one of the main characters that kind of ties things up.
“… So, she’s been there for six months, and she’s developed a relationship with the family, with helping to caretake for Elizabeth a lot. And they develop a relationship, and then she has a relationship with the husband as well. But I do feel like that’s kind of a survival tactic as a Black woman during that time just trying to survive. She was probably looking for someone to be her spokesperson in this situation and trying to find a new life for herself as well.”
The play can be a little confusing as, while the songs are beautifully sung, they sometimes don’t fit in with the action taking place on stage.
Speaking of singing, the voices and musical talent of the cast are outstanding. Carla explained. “I think it’s because Conor [McPherson writer and director] is trying to take us out of the actual play and into the music. Because you notice how sometimes the play would be going one direction and then the song would come. He’d be like, ‘Wait, that doesn’t really…’ Yeah. And that’s part of it. The story he says is the vinegar, and the music he says is the honey. So, I think that it’s a way for us to separate the two and for the audience to see the separation.”
When you put everything all together with the music of Bob Dylan performed in ways that make it sound new and fresh, you have an amazing evening at the theater.
“Girl From the North Country” is playing at the Broadway in Chicago CIBC Theatre through February 25.
I give it 4 winks of the EYE!
Until next time keep your EYE to the sky!
