Girl From the North Country

LONDON — The Irish playwright Conor McPherson has gone a-wanderin’ in a Minnesota of the mind, a bleak and soulful place conjured by the songs of Bob Dylan. As portrayed in “Girl From the North Country” — the truly sui generis new work written and directed by Mr. McPherson, with a multitude of songs by Mr. Dylan — this cold corner of the United States is a place where it is all too easy to lose your way.

That’s certainly true for the angry and bewildered characters in this strange theatrical hybrid of soaring music and thudding dialogue, which opened on Wednesday night at the Old Vic Theater here. As for Mr. McPherson, one of the greatest dramatists working, he, too, seems to be traveling through the dark without a compass.