Come From Away at the Peace Center
Like the glut of quarantine tales we’re going to be inundated by over the next few years, any play about an event as shared and deeply felt as 9/11 is most likely going to be met by my skepticism. The odds of anyone “getting it right” without simply vomiting out their own maudlin feelings on the subject are low.
That all said, the tack taken by Irene Sankoff and David Hein in Come From Away goes a long way toward evoking all of the feelings of that week by focusing on the theme that might be remembered best by those alive and aware at that time: unity.
On a relatively spare stage, a cast of 12 hustles around and creates over 30 characters with a kind of efficiency that other writers should look to. Sometimes summing up their current state with a line or two, no word is wasted and none of the people in the story feel two-dimensional.
The show takes place in Gander, Newfoundland, once an important refueling stop for international flights that’s now a tiny town of 9,000 — with all that entails. Everybody knowing one another, and one another’s business, along with the honest joy the townsfolk have for their lives in the Great White North is quickly established with the raucous song “Welcome to the Rock.” When multiple flights are diverted out of American airspace to Gander on 9/11, the populace loses no time prepping to house, feed and clothe an extra 7,000 residents.
The audience is introduced to several of the flight crews and passengers arriving (“28 Hours/Wherever We Are”) with the same proficiency with which we met the Newfoundlanders, and the transitions between characters is almost flawless, even when juggling multiple accents.
Once all of the players have been introduced and chaos reigns, the themes of understanding and shared feelings fully come to the fore. While many of the urbane travelers get used to this quaint way of life, and the Canadians help in every way they can, the empathy becomes contagious.
Everyone is angry together, sad together, and laughing together in turn. The beautiful “Prayer” shows how people can encourage all faiths, even in a place that’s “mostly Protestant, Baptist and Catholic”; the tense “On the Edge” shows the varying shock and pain as the gravity of the situation sinks in; and the exuberant “Screech In” conveys how, even in the worst circumstances, laughter can unite even true opposites.
The bumps in the play come toward the middle of its 100-minute, intermission-free runtime, when a few of the numbers become dedicated to overly explaining singular characters. Although sung beautifully by Marika Aubrey, “Me and the Sky” gives us an almost birth-to-now rundown of Captain Beverly Bass, one of the stranded pilots. Similarly, “Stop the World” concentrates only on a couple who found love on a mountain overlook, but, again, seeing individuals without the larger context of the others detracts from the emotion that we, the audience, shared with the group-at-large.
Overall, it’s a testament to the power of theater itself that these 12 very talented actors, a brilliant onstage band, and a few chairs can create such a jarringly sensitive experience. The laughs are plenty, the tears are plenty, and I think many in the audience will be vacationing in Gander over the next couple of years.
Come From Away runs through Jan. 29 at the Peace Center. For details and tickets, visit peacecenter.org.
(Photo by Matthew Murphy)
