COME FROM AWAY: Dazzling new musical shows heart of Newfoundland on 9-11
In 2012, the visionary Toronto show business lawyer Michael Rubinoff and his two Canadian book-lyricist-composers Irene Sankoff and David Hein mounted a 45 minute workshop production that combined the horrors of 9-11 with the quite incredible warmth of the people of Gander, Newfoundland. The amiable Newfoundlanders had opened their hearts and homes to some 7,000 grounded airline passengers when airports all along the East coast were suddenly closed to air traffic. The workshop was a hit – but they looked in vain for backers for the proposed show. Not a Canadian would nibble so they took it to the fabled Las Jolla Playhouse in 2015.
Thus begins the story of Come From Away – which blossomed into a massive hit all over the world. Even the previews filled the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre before the show opened on Broadway. And now, at long last, this disarming show comes to Edmonton under the aegis of Broadway Across Canada. It’s playing until Sunday, March 17 at the Jubilee Auditorium.
Come From Away joins a select group of Broadway shows that genuinely touch the heart. After 9-11, the selfless locals took care of the stranded passengers, cooked thousands of meals and tapped into the genuine friendliness that is so much a part of the Newfoundland ethos. The size of their town doubled in the space of a few hours. It was a place in a world suddenly grown cold where kindness continued to flourish and a welcoming fire blazed in the hearth.
Come From Away proudly wears its heart on its sleeve and has been known to leave entire audiences brushing away a tear or two. What keeps the show from sliding off into molasses treacle is its continuing improvisational urgency and a sense that we are experiencing the stories of real people in extremity. And while the show’s music may read as three-chord, guitar-pickin’ simple, it’s startlingly complex in the way it handles people and their manifold emotions.
The story is told in twangy, folksy music, often set to a Gallic drumbeat, underlined and illuminated in songs with titles such as Welcome to the Rock and Wherever We Are – as the bewildered passengers stare at the alien landscape. My particular favourite morsel of dialogue was, “Welcome to Walmart. Would you like to come back to my house for a shower?” The passengers are treated to such local delights as cod & cheese, and screech.
The show was put together from hundreds of interviews with passengers and residents. The canny writers (and director Christopher Ashley) have given each of the characters idiosyncratic personalities of their own. People meet, fall into (and out of) love, make friendships that apparently have lasted until today, and faced the death of loved ones in the twin towers.
In a time of rampant Islamophobia, and when America is turning away homeless immigrants, it’s nice to remember there was a time and place, short though it was, that a whole rainbow connection of people of all shapes, sizes, beliefs and colours shared a special time together.
It’s not all cod tongues and scruncheons. One mother won’t leave the phone – her son is a firefighter in New York and doesn’t answer. A local longtime resident heard there was a rabbi on one of the planes. He explained that his parents told him never to admit he was a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe. Even when he came to Newfoundland many years later he kept up the ruse. And here, at last, he can practice his long hidden religion. Another touching moment comes when one passenger remembers a hymn from his youth and sings the Peace Prayer of St. Francis. Soon others join in, and followers of many religions sing the hymns of their youth – even one unfortunate Muslim who is subject to bigotry even here.
But mostly it’s all great fun. There was comic stupefaction when a huge creature suddenly appears in front of one of the busses. It was a moose. There were parties and games and karaoke. And above all, the welcoming of the townspeople.
“If you need something, just go down to the ‘Shoppers’ and pick it off the shelves,” they say.
“We need some grills,” said one hearty resident.
“I don’t know where the grills are,” wails a passenger.
”You just go into backyards and pick up the grills,” was the answer. Later, the fellow was to observe, “I’ve never drank so much tea in my life. Everyone offered me a cup while I was stealing their grill.”
There was a cheery round of applause from the audience as a group of volunteers snapped on their rubber gloves, picked up their plungers and set out to clean the overused and exhausted toilets.
At the end there is the sad feeling that when it’s all over, things will return to what they were before.
”Wherever you are – something’s gone,” they sing in the bittersweet Something’s Missing.
The entire cast of this touring production is exemplary; they change characters so fast it’s hard to single any one out. Director Ashley guides his 12-person cast through a bewildering number of roles and accents – islanders and passengers alike. The eight person string, accordion, electric bass and penny whistle band is just right, and stick around – because after the curtain calls they come out for a rousing solo performance of their own.
Photos by Matthew Murphy
