I went back to check Brantley's review, which slipped into the ether at the time of the shutdown, a week later. It's a Critic's Pick and unqualified rave ("Bob Dylan’s Amazing Grace -- ravishing and singular musical"), but this stood out:
"That pastiche element annoyed me when I first saw “Girl,” with an English cast in London. But I’ve come increasingly to admire McPherson’s use, and subversion, of well-worn tropes to create a collective national sensibility, filtered through decades of memory. “Girl” shakes up its cultural clichés — which may make you think of passed-down, hard-times stories in your own family — to cut through to the genuine pain of a traumatic chapter in American history."
Rare to see a critic own a nuanced change of heart about a show. That "annoyed" was intriguing, because Brantley ultimately found the musical transcendent, of even its own schematic construct.
I recall having a vague debate about what to see first, this piece of McDonagh's "Hangmen" -- both plays by UK playwrights, though with nothing else in common. I went with Hangmen, which turned out to be a good call because it didn't return. Since, the Winingham "Like a Rolling Stone" on the cast recording breaks me, mysteriously. I now fear that "Girl From the North Country" will not make it into the looming winter, every house on TDF.
Going this afternoon. |
