The character of Mr. Burke in the musical “Girl From The North Country” is a Southerner with a failed business after the stock market crash of 1929. Or he was until David Benoit was cast in the role.
“(Playwright and director) Conor McPherson asked me via our associate director if I would consider relocating the character to the North East,” Benoit told the Herald. “For me that was easy because I grew up in Somerset, Massachusetts and I was born in Fall River, and the textile industry was huge in Fall River in the early 1900s, so I said guess what, ‘The Burkes are from Fall River and worked in textiles.’ ”
Most plays don’t give an actor the room to bring a new vision to a character’s history. But “Girl From The North Country,” which runs March 12 -24 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, depends deeply on fresh visions.
A decade ago, representatives for Bob Dylan approached Irish playwright McPherson to build a show out of Dylan’s catalog. McPherson took a very un-Broadway approach — “Girl From The North Country” is no “Jersey Boys” or “Mamma Mia!” Instead, he filled a story of wayward travelers looking for hope at a guesthouse in Duluth, Minnesota during the Depression with dramatically rearranged, mostly-obscure Dylan songs — numbers in the show run from “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone” to tracks from “Saved,” “Infidels,” and “Empire Burlesque.”
“It’s not all his greatest hits, it’s what Conor found applicable to the story,” Benoit said. “And (musical director and supervisor) Simon Hale orchestrated these songs to be reimagined and reinvented, and he won a Tony Award for his work. And his arrangements really are beautiful. He captures this folky, American style and the songs take on a whole new life.”
Dylan himself said the show moved him to tears. So purists might want to embrace the vision despite “Hurricane” sounding (nicely) like something between bluegrass and gospel.
“This show is a completely unique piece of theater,” Benoit added. “It is a jukebox musical but Conor has really crafted a beautiful script with beautifully flawed characters, mine included. This role is a gift, something I’ve always wanted to play.”
A graduate of the Boston Conservatory, Benoit has worked on loads of shows spanning a wide artistic range — “Les Miserables” to “Avenue Q.” But creating Mr. Burke has given him a true thrill.
“He’s a father who is trying his best and failing miserably,” he said.
Of course, many of the characters are failing miserably — it is, after all, a story about the Great Depression constructed from Dylan songs.
There is the landlord renting rooms in his broken-down house looking to hold off the bank from foreclosing. The landlord’s wife, who is often pushing through the symptoms of dementia. There are racial tensions, lost fortunes, parents helpless to provide for their children, and wave after wave of crashed dreams. And, among the pianos, fiddles, and vocal harmonies, flickers of hope.
“Hope and humor is there in the dark times,” Benoit said. “Humanity perseveres.”
For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com
