It’s coming on to eighteen years since the awful events of 9/11. There’s a whole generation now that doesn’t remember the actual day or has only a cursory knowledge of what happened. There was so much going on and so much not going on that it’s easy to overlook one of the largest of the small good stories that came out of the horror.
Flights coming into the US from foreign destinations were diverted and American airspace was shut down. Canada took all the flights coming in from Europe if they were past the point of no return, i.e, didn’t have enough fuel to return to the continent. The little town of Gander, whose airport had been, among other things, a serious departure point for aircraft during WW II, and who was closest to northern Europe, received 38 planes. The people of Gander, population of around 10,000, fed and housed 6,700 passengers and crew from all over the world until they were able to resume their journeys on September 14.
Come from Away is the story of that experience. There aren’t any words to describe it that haven’t been used and seemingly overused. It is, indeed, a picture of the milk of human kindness writ large, of how on short notice a small town on an island pulled together a humanitarian mission and carry it off with warmth and grace. Book, music and lyrics are by Irene Sankoff and David Hein.
I went into this with a certain degree of skepticism, expecting saccharine sweetness and rainbows. Nope. Cast your cynicism aside and be swept away by a story of ordinary people rising to a challenge – on both sides of this story. It opens on the ordinary Tuesday morning everyone talks about with the mayor of Gander meeting his pals and other constituents in the Tim Horton’s in town. The school bus drivers are on strike, and negotiations aren’t going well. And then the policeman rushes in and says, “Turn on the television.”
When will these passengers be told what’s happened? How long before they’re allowed off the plane? Immigration control still has to be observed. Hand baggage only, a good reminder not to put essentials like medication in checked luggage. Are there animals on the plane? How many public places can be used as shelters? How can guests be transported to shelters? How many telephones can we provide for them? There’s a particularly delightful brief number when the toilets at an elementary school/shelter need to be cleaned and a group of men, allegedly cardiologists, in lab coats and gloves present themselves when no one else volunteers.
A cast of 12 handles passengers, crew and townspeople, and somehow manage to keep almost everything clearly defined, although they’re not so much defined by name as by roles, the mayor, the captain, the oil company employee and so on. The music, some of which is clearly Celtic in style, very characteristic of Newfoundland – who knew? - is often charming with Irish flutes, a harmonium, and a bouzouki (not so Celtic there...), among other things. The musical staging from Kelly Devine, including choreography with chairs on the stage’s turntable, works very well. Beowulf Boritt’s set is one of those less-minimal-than-it-seems things that’s quite beautiful, and the lights from Howell Binkley add to the aura. Sound design in the Fox is always a balancing act, and in the opening number it was hard to hear the lyrics because of a thudding bass. Things improved some after that.
It’s not a perfect show. About 100 minutes without intermission compresses things, and leaves characters sometimes shortchanged and sometimes somewhat stereotyped. Some of the score is deeply unremarkable and little of it will survive independently.
But it’s a great story, carefully told and well put together by director Christopher Ashley.
Come from Away
through May 26
Fox Theatre
527 N. Grand
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