Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country and Broadway’s Rebirth

Todd Almond
Methuen Drama
Released

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Slow Train Coming

Todd Almond’s story would have been worth telling in normal times, but, as a result of unprecedented circumstances, has become quite extraordinary. Not only does this book document the life (or, more accurately, lives) of an exceptional show, but it also doubles as a chronicle of an unforgettable time.

Over two decades, Todd Almond built himself a solid career as a musician, playwright, songwriter and actor based in New York but working more widely across the United States. However, by the beginning of this decade, despite 23 years of trying, including a couple of near misses around Les Misérables, he had yet to make a Broadway debut.

In Slow Train Coming, he relates the tale of a life-affirming show from before its inception, through the recruitment of creatives and productions at the Old Vic, then in a commercial West End Theatre, to the far side of the Atlantic, where it first appeared at the Public and then moved to the Belasco Theatre on Broadway before disaster struck.

Almond was perfectly placed to tell this story from the inside, having played Elias in each New York production. Anyone who has seen Girl from the North Country will have struggled to categorise it. The show, which premièred at the Old Vic, isn’t exactly a straight play, but then neither is it a musical. The best description might be a play with music.

Given the credentials of playwright Conor (The Weir) McPherson and legendary musician Bob Dylan (who have still never met, not even at an awards ceremony), you would have thought that the resulting combination would be a guaranteed hit.

However, the Old Vic’s Artistic Director, Matthew Warchus, and the producers behind the project must have suffered terribly, as advance sales were negligible and it took word-of-mouth following previews and then largely rave reviews to ensure that the play with music eventually became one of the Old Vic’s bestselling shows.

Subsequently, given the disastrous transfer of Enron, there were justifiable concerns about how plays set in Bob Dylan’s home town of Duluth, Minnesota written by an Irishman with the British creative team would go down in New York. Realistically, with the star names and enthusiastic backing of the Public’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, American success should never have been in doubt.

A Broadway transfer was always going to be trickier, given the limited number of theatres available. Ironically, after a year of trying, the opening finally took place on 6 March 2020. For those who don’t have long memories, this was just six days before Broadway closed due to the pandemic.

Remarkably, 18 months later, Girl from the North Country managed to relaunch with largely the same cast but almost no audience due to the threat of viral recurrence, which brought things down again when the Omicron strain of the virus came along, diminishing the cast on a nightly basis.

The creative team and cast should have been reconciled to potential disaster by then, since Oskar Eustis was hospitalised after catching COVID at the opening night party and many others attached to the production had struggled with illness as the show made its way to Broadway.

It made a final return to Broadway before touring the United States and has apparently been filmed, so those who loved it and others who never had the chance to do so might one day get to see it in a cinema or their own homes.

Rather than telling everything purely from his own perspective, Almond has interviewed anyone and everyone including Bob Dylan, Conor McPherson, Matthew Warchus, Oskar Eustis and leading performers on both sides of the Atlantic, while also hearing from those playing minor characters and even swings.

There is far more to this book than a mere chronological detailing of events. We get to hear much about the human side of working in theatre and branch out into the impact of the COVID pandemic on the Broadway community more widely than merely following a single show.

To some, the anecdotes might be the strongest attraction, particularly the thrill enjoyed by those at the Public when a stranger in a hoodie in the back row at one performance was recognised as Bob Dylan.

Pleasingly, not only is Todd Almond a multi-talented performer but he writes well, baring his soul through autobiographical interjections, while building a fully rounded and very satisfying portrait of a unique experience that was largely triumphant, despite the kinds of obstacles that would (and did) kill off many lesser productions.

Reviewer: Philip Fisher

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