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Review: ‘Girl From the North Country’ illuminates lives adrift

You can practically see the tumbleweeds blowing through the hearts of the characters in “Girl From the North Country.” This achingly beautiful musical weds the songs of Bob Dylan to a book, by Conor McPherson, that explores the unsettled destinies of the denizens of a boarding house in Duluth, Mi...

Jeannette Bayardelle and the Cast of Girl From The North Country on Broadway. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

You can practically see the tumbleweeds blowing through the hearts of the characters in “Girl From the North Country.” This achingly beautiful musical weds the songs of Bob Dylan to a book, by Conor McPherson, that explores the unsettled destinies of the denizens of a boarding house in Duluth, Minn., during the Great Depression.

What unites the characters, diverse though they are, is a sense of tenuousness, the feeling that the earth will never feel firm beneath their feet, that they will forever be on a search for a resting place. In short that they will remain adrift, “without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone,” to borrow a famous Dylan lyric that is emblematic of the musical’s central theme, the loneliness that follows the characters like an unshakable shadow.

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