Through Sun 8/18
It’s been five years since the touring production of Come From Away awed Playhouse Square audiences. On Tuesday night, opening night for a short run at Connor Palace, it did it again.
The touching (sometimes funny) musical uses a multi-faceted cast to tell the story about what happened to thousands of passengers stranded in Canada when United States air traffic shut down after the 9/11 attacks.
This production is directed by Daniel Goldstein (with musical staging by Richard J. Hinds), but still based on the Broadway original.
And yes, the cast is as impressive as ever (and even more inclusive). It’s clearly a team effort. Everyone is listed in the program as a specific character they are playing, but they all also play “others” so not only are plane passengers seen, so are townspeople.
Performers include Kathleen Cameron, Trey DeLuna, Addison Garner, Andrew Harvey, Andrew Hendrick, Hannah Kato, Chelsea LeValley, Kristin Litzenberg, Miranda Luze, Stanton Morales, Candace Alyssa Rhodes, Molly Samson, Erich Schroeder, Jason Tyler Smith, Nathan David Smith, Shawn W. Smith, Dekontee Tucrkile, and Andre Williams. The tour music director is Sarah Pool Wilhelm.
The onstage band, directed by Cynthia Kortman Westphal included whistles, Irish flute, Uilleann pipes, a fiddle, guitars, and percussion.
Set in Newfoundland, Come from Away, now at Playhouse Square, explores what happened in one corner of the world after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Most of us can remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news on the day we now call “9/11.”
This engrossing, clever and mesmerizing production is every bit as good as the one I saw in New York. Written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, it tells the 9/11 story from the viewpoint of those in Gander, Newfoundland, when air traffic was shut down for several days. No flying in or out of the United States stranded thousands.
Among those affected were nearly 7,000 people via 38 planes diverted to Gander (population 10,000). Come From Away creates a narrative based on true stories collected by Sankoff and Hein.
Packed with Gaelic tunes, rhythmic narrative, bar tunes and more, all delightful, it highlights hospitality offered by townspeople used to living “on the edge of the world on an island in the sea.” Love and unlove, strangers meeting and parting, all play a role as we are swept into this “side effect” that no one could have imagined or planned. It’s not sappy feel-good junk songs either — but it did leave most of us feeling hopeful (even joyous) as we left the theater. (If I had more space I’d tell you about the lost cell phone returned by strangers after the show and all the good will it showed.)
As the opening song, “Welcome to the Rock,” reveals, one reason the Newfoundlanders managed the sudden population increase so well is that in addition to being used to hardships, they also shared a great sense of humor. This came in handy when they buckled down to offer emergency housing and meals for thousands of (by now) crabby and scared passengers.
Why was so much help needed? Well, for one thing, all passenger baggage was locked inside the grounded planes, so ordinary necessities — think baby food, diapers, tampons, medicine (please never check necessary medicines) — had to be found. The people of Gander rallied and found space and provisions for the people and even for the animals confined to the hold.
Brilliant musical staging (by Kelly Devine) and a functionally beautiful set (by Beowulf Boritt) add mightily to the show’s impact and wit as the cast swiftly moves chairs, tables, etc. when the story shifts from inside the planes to local bars, school gyms, and so on. Thanks to this, it’s easy to see what’s happening no matter where you sit (seats in the top balcony, where I was in NYC) and in the front rows (where I was in the Connor Palace) are equally good.
BOTTOM LINE: Come From Away may even be perfect for skeptics who say they hate musicals because they judge them fake or too sentimental or too satirical or whatever. It’s none of those things. An unlikely subject for a musical? Probably, and yet, it’s a perfect mix of story and song that doesn’t wallow in tragedy or negative emotion. If you only go to one show this year, let it be this one.
THE NEW BOTTOM LINE FOR THE 2024 VERSION: Same wonderful storyline, true and needed today more than ever. If you missed it the first time, check it out and fast — only eight performances scheduled, and one is already gone).
2 Responses to “THEATER REVIEW: “Come From Away” @ Playhouse Square by Laura Kennelly”
Edward Mycue
OK if KENNELLY says — and she says so. Enough for me.
Edward Mycue
I missed it then and hope to grab it when if it comes to San Francisco. note; Dr Kennelly is a wiz and a heartbreaker historian.