Musical welcomed back with open arms
Come From Away
(out of 4) Book, music and lyrics by David Hein and Irene Sankoff. Directed by Christopher Ashley. Until Sept. 2 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King Street W. Mirvish.com or 416-872-1212 or 1-800461-3333. It’s come back from away.
The Sunday afternoon opening of Come From Away, with a new Canadian cast in an open-ended run with Mirvish Productions, was a thematic reckoning. Since its professional Toronto debut in late 2016, the footstomping, heartwarming kitchen party of a musical travelled south of the border, won a Tony Award, and easily charmed American audiences — so much so that it has made itself at home on Broadway, and doesn’t show any signs of outstaying its welcome. Now that Come From Away has returned to Canadian audiences (this current production had a sold-out run in Winnipeg before setting down in Toronto), there was nothing but open arms to greet it. It’s rare to hear a musical start to rock-concert-level cheers.
In fact, that seems to be the only difference between the original Toronto production and this new version — typical Canadian humbleness has all but disappeared. With sustained critical praise and box office draws and the official seal of approval from our U.S. neighbours, the opening matinee audience cheered this story of east-coast humility in Gander, N.L., in the wake of 9/11 with unabashed pride.
And thus begins the second life of Come From Away, one that proves a bright future in international tours and regional productions (and a movie to come), if subsequent casts can keep up. On now at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the new cast of12 performers ably delivers a show with an intense pace of text, music and intricate staging by director Christopher Ashley (winning him the Tony Award), shuffling through a variety of characters involved when 38 planes make emergency landings in rural Newfoundland on Sept.11, 2001. Beowulf Boritt’s set and Howell Binkley’s lighting still convey changes in scenery, from a claustrophobic plane to the deep, dark, expansive woods of Newfoundland as quickly as Ashley needs them to.
Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s book also makes it particularly appealing for new productions to replicate the emotional effectiveness of the original, as it’s built to get quick glimpses of numerous individuals who make up a larger whole.
The current cast is cleverly built with several members with strong comedic streaks, including Lisa Horner as Gander resident and den mother Beulah; Ali Momen as the witty L.A.-er Kevin J.; Kristen Peace as Bonnie, the Gander animal wran- gler charged with caring for a stranded bonobo ape; and Kevin Vidal as Bob, the Brooklyn resident suspicious of the Newfies’ kindness, and a suave pilot who woos the boy-crazy Annette, played by Eliza-Jane Scott.
This new cast reveals humour as one of the driving forces behind the musical’s identity and message — it builds bonds, it invites, and it makes unimaginable circumstances bearable to start, and eventually joyous. We don’t get to meet these people in their full human complexities, but Ashley’s direction moves so fast it’s hard to notice. We, like the “plane people,” get brief but touching introductions.
The one character that is a little more fleshed out is Captain Beverley Bass, an American Airlines captain on the route from Paris to Dallas, a part that earned Jenn Colella a Tony nomination in the original production. In her song “Me and the Sky,” we hear of her life not only as a mother and a pilot, but as a driven child, an outcast in a male-dominated industry, and the first female American Airlines pilot. The emotional depth that the song provides, in her love for flying and the betrayal of the Sept. 11 attacks, is beautifully captured by Eliza-Jane Scott, who serendipitously comes from a pilot family. Come From Away may be best known for its aggressively cheerful portrayal of Newfoundlanders, but an underlying theme is the power of the matriarch — the mayor might be a man (George Masswohl), but the people we see flying the planes, anchoring the news (Steffi Didomenicantonio plays Janice, covering the plane people on her first day on air) and doing the bulk of the work to welcome 7,000 people are women, and the show celebrates the power of domestic work, such as cooking, cleaning and caretaking, traditionally serviced by women.
But no matter who takes the stage, Sankoff and Hein’s folk-inspired music remains the essential element to both the soul of Come From Away, and the distinct way Ashley’s version of it begins with a jolt and keeps running from there. Musical director Bob Foster keeps the band of nine musicians equally as full throttle yet tightly orchestrated as the action onstage. The song “Screeched In,” depicting exactly what you think, is as raucously charming as the repeated refrain “You are here” and “I am here” is tear-jerking (note the use of the pennywhistle in Sankoff and Hein’s music, as well as the Titanic soundtrack it spoofs).
Until the curtain call, and the reallife inspirations took to the stage themselves to greet the opening audience, the biggest cheer came from the first repeated chorus “I’m an Islander, I am an Islander,” with the now-famous choreographed stomping and the cast leaning forward. With a new cast of Come From Away, it appears there will be far more Islanders to come.