page_title: Ghost Brothers of Darkland County
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Ghost Brothers of Darkland County / Reception
caption_attribution_description: John Mellencamp (singer, songwriter, and guitarist) at en:Fort Sam Houston, Texas on January 29, 2007 for the official ribbon cutting ceremony of The Center for the Intrepid, a $50 million state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation facility designed for servicemembers wounded in operations en:Iraqi Freedom and en:Enduring Freedom. Photo by Peter Rimar.
context_page_description: Ghost Brothers of Darkland County is a musical by John Mellencamp, Stephen King, and T Bone Burnett. It debuted at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2012. A touring production began in late 2013 through the South and Midwest. A soundtrack was released featuring country, folk, and rock musicians.
  The story is a Southern Gothic tale of two brothers who hate each other and are forced by their father to spend time in a haunted cabin, where they are visited by the ghosts of dead brothers who also hated each other.
context_section_description: A writer for Esquire magazine visited a New York rehearsal of the show in the fall of 2007 and said, "Musicals aren't usually a guy thing. This one, though, is not only tolerable, it's good. It may be the first-ever musical written by men for men. There's no orchestra, just a band with two twangy acoustic guitars, bass guitar, drums, an accordion, and a fiddle. The songs are both haunting and all-American."
  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted in 2013 that "reviews were mixed" of the original production but "the problems that required tweaking all resided in Stephen King's book—particularly an overlong, muddled second act—never in the music of John Mellencamp."
  The newspaper called the musical "a pretty awesome spectacle", praising Mellencamp's "rousing score, a fusion of blues, country and rock that's superbly performed by [director Susan] Booth's 19-member cast. Under Burnett's musical direction, the sensational four-piece band never misses a beat." Of the plot, the reviewer commented: "As a prolific novelist, King is a legendary master of suspense. As a first-time playwright, he doesn't really break new ground so much as he sticks to what he does best. Indeed, 'Ghost Brothers' might impress as a freaky paranormal morality tale on the surface, but at its core it spins a story as ancient as Cain and Abel—or, for one dysfunctional family living in backwoods Mississippi circa 2007, as recent as a mysterious tragedy from 40 years earlier."
  The New York Times review said "[t]he production is as rambling as the script", asking "with its parade of Southern Gothic references (Faulkner, Williams, O'Connor) and melodramatic metaphors, is the show supposed to be a winking, mischievous musical? It's not clear." Of the plot, it said "[t]he intricate story of Ghost Brothers might work wonderfully on the page ... but the mood too often wavers. The ghosts fade into the background, sometimes on purpose, other times not." The review praised musical director Burnett, who "handles a diverse range of styles without ever sounding a slick note" with "an impressive chorus of voices to support Mr. Mellencamp's score of blues, gospel and roots." It noted that, overall, "the show does resist cliche."
caption: Reviewers emphasized the strength of Mellencamp's songwriting.