A Reminder of the Goodness within Humanity
5/5
Spoilers
On September 11th 2001 a disaster befell the so-believed impregnable U.S.A., the memory of which is etched into our communal subconscious. In America, the event is key to understanding so many events that have occurred over the last twenty years. The term '9/11' has become a powerful phrase that can communicate a nation's horror, shock, and sadness, as well as acting as a charged reminder of the politics that followed, within a heartbeat.
As the four planes were used to commit these atrocities, hundreds of flights found themselves with urgent orders to land. Thirty eight planes, carrying nearly seven thousand passengers, were sent to the obscure Newfoundland town of Gander where they were stranded for five days. Before planes could cross The Pond in one well-fuelled bound, pilots would break the journey mid-Atlantic at Gander. Come 11/09/01, Gander had a massive airport that no-one visited. Suddenly, this town of nine thousand found themselves nearly doubled in size and responsible for those who had appeared.
Come From Away is a musical that looks at this little-known aspect of the 9/11 narrative. Amidst the pain and terror was a surprising act of human kindness. The peoples of Gander and their surrounding towns, with little official support, organised the relief of these passengers. They found halls to put them up in. They fed and re-clothed them. They provided phone access, wracking up thousands of dollars in bills. They let them into their homes to shower. They gave shoulders to cry on, space to worship, medication, veterinary access, and whiskey. The story is one of hope and kindness, of the amazing lengths people will go to in support their fellow mortals.
The show is impressively performed by a cast of twelve. They play numerous roles, townsfolk and strandees, readjusting a jacket or adding a hat to signify a change. These performers were magnificent, bringing a power and energy to the show that drove it forward. Their characterisations were to the point and made it an easy show to go along with. Without an interval, the show needed a high level of drive to keep the audience engaged, and the cast brought it in bags. In many ways this concept of twelve people embodying so many is representative of the tale being told. These people, hopping from one soul to the next, demonstrated the shared humanity of the characters.
Sankoff and Hein, the show's writers, based their work on real people's experiences. There are some composite characters, but the vast amount of stories are real. Some provide evidence of human kindness, some character work, and most explore how such a world-twisting event impacts a person. You have the middle-aged woman trying to reach her NY firefighter son on the phone bonding with the elementary school teacher. The gay couple who find surprising acceptance from the locals, even as their relationship is splintering. The vet insisting she search the cargo holds to find pets that may be onboard and hungry, including an epileptic cat and a pregnant rare bonobo. And, of course, no musical is complete without a love story, here provided by a couple who come together in their early 60s, bonding in the confusion.
Importantly the work never strays from challenging the big issues, although they importantly never explicitly mention what has happened. To invoke the phrase '9/11' would be to draw the mind's eye to those collapsing towers and distract the audience from the story being told. We learnt that the firefighter has died, a pain shared through the audience. In the midst of this sea of people, a Muslim chef from Egypt finds himself initially rejected from helping with the cooking before being subjected to fellow passenger's suspicious and dehumanising security checks. He represents the people for whom 9/11 became the turning point in their communities, the point where a racism based in fear became outwardly commonplace.
The score was compelling. I did not know much about the show or any of the music before attending, but it is infectious. Typically, I prefer musicals with big tunes (the likes of Les Misérables or anything by Jerry Herman), but this score did not really go for that. Save for the pilot's 11 o'clock number, detailing her journey to being the first female pilot in America, the songs moved rapidly from one to the other, broken up into standalone verses by small bits of dialogue, flowing with the changes of a long river. In many ways, the score was reminiscent of a sung-through work, like Rent, although it wasn't. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the music. Newfoundland has links to the U.K. and Ireland, so the music had a Celtic thrust to it, provided by a live band with all of the flare and passion of a Friday night in O'Neills, Dublin.
With a log cabin aesthetic, the stage was sparsely set. Some tall trees covered the band lightly on either side, and in the middle of the stage were twelve chairs on a small revolve. Such minimal tools were put to great effect, transforming swiftly from a Tim Hortons to a plane interior to a hall to a church to a bar. The choreography and movement was purposeful and energetic keeping the piece rolling, whilst enthusing it with a beating pulse.
Several times I have sat through stage works that have led to waterworks from those around me. There was the time we saw Howard Goodall's magnificent Love Story and everyone in the theatre, except myself, was in floods of tears by the end. Come From Away was fairly distinctive for the frequency of tearful moments, shared by the audience including myself. Most came in touching signs of kindness or from desperation of a scenario. But the most moving came rather unexpectedly. Right in the middle there was a scene that moved to a church. One character began to sing a hymn from their childhood, Make Me a Channel of Your Peace. The music spread around more cast members, deep in prayer. They were joined by a Rabbi, who interspersed the music with a traditional Jewish melody, also deep in prayer. Then the Muslim chef was given space to lay his prayer mat and begin his prayers, silently. This moment of shared humanity, across differences that have driven war and hatred, represented the key aspect of the show's success perfectly. In times of great adversity it becomes clear that we are all the same. To that end, we should be like the people of Gander and show kindness selflessly.
Come From Away
2021, Phoenix Theatre, London
Director: Christopher Ashley
Writers & Composers: Irene Sankoff & David Hein
Cast: Jenna Boyd, James Doherty, Mary Doherty, Mark Dugdale, Alice Fearn, Kate Graham, Stuart Hickey, Jonathan Andrew Hume, Gemma Knight Jones, Harry Morrison, Sam Oladeinde, & Emma Salvo
Currently running in London
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