As "the snowflakes storm, when the rivers freeze and summer ends," in Iowa, Girl From the North Country, a musical featuring the songs of Bob Dylan, is timely in its upcoming six-day stay at the Des Moines Civic Center on Nov. 28.
Even though the musical isn’t about Dylan — the story takes place in the depths of the Great Depression, 1934, just a few years shy of his birth — it tethers itself to the legendary songwriter’s life in key ways. Unfolding in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, the musical captures the spirit of the singer's career lived largely on the road through the intertwining lives of the weary travelers who move in and out of a guesthouse on the shore of Lake Superior, and the stories they bring with them.
Employing 20 songs from Dylan's expansive and timeless discography, accompanied by instruments of the '30s, the audience is guided between the past and present and the areas in between by a narrator, Dr. Walker, played by Alan Ariano.
Dr. Walker is a divorced, morphine-addicted physician who frequently visits the boarding house to attend to his patients. In the musical, Ariano’s character goes in and out of aside, talking to the audience about events that have happened in the past.
“It is a unique honor to be the one individual that communicates directly to the audience,” Ariano said in an interview with IPR. “He's kind of like a unique character in that I play a dual role, in a sense… living it at the time and being able to tell it to the people in the present time.”
When the musical began its North American tour in fall 2022 — appropriately in Minnesota at the Orpheum Theatre, previously owned by Dylan — Ariano made the two-and-a-half hour trip from Minneapolis to Duluth to spend the afternoon exploring the town. He visited the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, which he speaks about in his narration of the show.
“It was really quite a powerful memorial and knowing the background of it, checking out the city was really an experience I won't forget,” he said.
While the musical exists in the bleakness of Depression-era life, punctuated by the stiff cold of northern Minnesota Novembers, Ariano promises the story won’t leave viewers downhearted.
“There's heavy topics in the show and it… goes in very dark places. But it's amazing how you leave with hope,” he said. “This is a musical that you leave thinking about.”
The show is, by technical terms, a jukebox musical, but Ariano says Irish playwright Conor McPherson didn’t adhere to the traditional musical theater conventions when writing it. Songs take place between moments onstage, taking the mood or emotion of the scene and infusing them into the music, rather than progressing the plot.
And for those interested in seeing it simply to indulge in Dylan’s music, even the most ardent fan may find something new and unfamiliar within the show’s Tony-award-winning orchestration and arrangements, and be “pleasantly surprised,” according to Ariano.
“You'll definitely recognize a few of his popular songs, but it's not like his top 20, even though there are 20 songs,” he said. “You may say, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn't know that was a Bob Dylan song.’ Or, ‘Oh, I remember that one that I forgot about.’”
The show marks just the beginning of a Dylan takeover of Des Moines this winter. In February, Hoyt Sherman Place will host Cat Power, who is currently touring her latest album of Dylan covers in a recreation of his 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.
Girl From North Country will play at the Des Moines Civic Center from Nov. 28 - Dec. 3.
