Mini Intro: We've always wanted to launch a weekly theater column here so we're finally doing it. Though theater is not film (the focus of this site), it relates in many ways to the screen arts. So we'll end each column with screening recommendations! In weeks where we don't get invited to shows, we'll get creative to keep it going. This will be a Monday night series from here on out. - Editor
Mare Winningham in 'Girl From the North Country'. Photo © Matthew Murphy
by Nathaniel R
The Tony-nominated jukebox musical Girl From the North Country closes on Broadway tomorrow, Sunday June 19th with the 3:00 PM matinee. While it's too late to urge you to attend (unless you're right here in the five boroughs) there are still ways to enjoy the show in retrospect. The easiest of those is listening to the cast recording with its Tony-winning orchestrations. But the most crucial way to appreciate the show at the moment (happily it was filmed for posterity) is to join us in deep appreciation of its leading lady Mare Winningham...
For those of you who haven't been following Broadway theater, Girl From the North Country is a jukebox musical that uses Bob Dylan's expansive song catalague for its score. Jukebox musicals have a long and, lets be honest, sordid history of trying to retrofit multiple songs into a singular story. Five time Tony nominee Conor McPherson takes a different approach here as Director and Book writer. Rather than shoehorning Dylan's versatile music and Nobel prize winning lyrics into one story, they're used instead to illuminate a whole tapestry of stories and to evoke disparate moods.
with stage husband Jay O. Sanders © Matthew Murphy
The musical takes place in 1934 in the Minnesota boarding house of Nick and Elizabeth Laine (the leads Jay O. Sanders and Mare Winningham) and the characters are their tenants, neighbors, and children most of whom have fallen on hard times during the Great Depression. This approach to a jukebox musical is wiser than the standard though it's still hard to follow at times, connecting the dots from songs to characters and back again. It's easier to revel to lose yourself in it, if you think less of it as a collection of short stories and more as a concert of Dylan songs performed by Depression era wanderers.
The Tony nominated Jeanette Bayardelle, playing Nick's mistress Mrs. Neilsen, is a standout in glorious voice as is the curiously unnominated lighting design which is regularly breathtaking especially in the group numbers. Still, the show's MVP is Mare Winningham.
The actress has been a consummate entertainer for over 40 years now. Her first credited acting role came in the 1978 TV movie Special Olympics as the teenage sister of an intellectually disabled athlete and her film debut followed in 1980 with the music drama One Trick Pony which starred Paul Simon in his only leading film role. In her long career since then she's won 1 primetime Emmy (from 7 nominations) and the Independent Spirit Award. She's also been nominated for the Oscar, the Golden Globe, 2 Tonys, and 2 SAG awards. And yet we'd argue she's still consistently undervalued.
Mare singing "Like a Rolling Stone" the musical's most riveting number
Despite its ensemble nature, with the focus regularly shifting away from her, Girl From the North Country is surprisingly one of Winningham's best roles. Elizabeth Laine is suffering from dementia. She swings from childish outbursts to near catatonic stillness with moments of lucidity between. Elizabeth's mental extremes might feel gimmicky in lesser hands but not in Mare's. In fact, lucidity might be exactly the right word to describe Mare's acting, despite Elizabeth's struggles with the same. The Tony Awards gave viewers a peak at first act showstopper "Like a Rolling Stone" but it's yet more glorious in the context of a darkened theater where you can't predict what she'll do next.
Mare's shapeshifting moodswings organically yank her to the front of the stage to belt this one out, her connection with the lyrics and audience deepening with each verse until it feels so ecstatic that she tosses off her hat and joins the company singing along behind her. It can't be easy to make any scene, especially a pivotal act closer that has to leave the audience high and desperate for more, feel immediate and organic when you've performing it eight shows a week for months, but that's the beauty of her gifts and command of the stage. Her twangy vocal expressiveness as a singer and emotionally lucidity as an actor pay huge dividends here in complete harmony. She didn't win the Tony this month but we pray to see and hear her joyful impossible spontaneity in another show soon.
Adjacent Movie Recommendations
• Georgia (1995) Winningham is spectacular in this Jennifer Jason Leigh led drama about two musician sisters with a troubled relationship. During intermission the tourist beside us was raving. 'I had no idea Mare Winningham could sing this beautifully' so I couldn't help myself and did some missionary work in promoting this 90s gem. In fact, according to our panel at The Supporting Actress Smackdown Winningham should've won the Oscar for this performance. Her rendition of the classic "Hard Times" is perfection; you fully believe that she's a famous folk star.
• I'm Not There (2007) Todd Haynes experimental biopic film looks at Bob Dylan's life and persona prismatically with six actors playing different "aspects". Cate Blanchett's 'Jude' got the bulk of attention for one of her greatest performances but the Heath Ledger 'Robbie' segment is a meta sensation as Ledger plays a young actor doing a biopic of a Dylan-like singer.
• Miracle Mile (1988) This nuclear-panic action drama stars Anthony Edward & Mare Winningham. If you watched the Tonys when Edwards introduced the performance from Girl From The North Country, you'll know that he's married to Winningham and at her request, subbed for one of the roles for a full weekend back in May. What you might not know is that they're newlyweds; They've been friends since Miracle Mile but got romantic during the COVID pandemic.
• Wonder Boys (2000) Curtis Hanson's acclaimed academia/writer dramedy is best known (at least to Oscar nuts) for its surprise awards trajectory which led to a shocking snub performance for Best Actor hopeful Michael Douglas and a surprise Oscar-nomination in Film Editing. The only thing that wasn't surprising during awards season about this movie was Bob Dylan winning an Oscar for Best Original Song "Things Have Changed"
NEXT WEEK ON 'STAGE DOOR':
The Off Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, currently playing at West Side Theater on 43rd Street