There is barely time to settle into Broadway North’s Come From Away before the story begins moving, and once it does, it rarely stops.
The musical tells the true story of what happened after 38 planes carrying nearly 7,000 passengers were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, when U.S. airspace closed following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
There is no intermission. Music runs beneath almost the entire production. Twelve actors move quickly between Newfoundlanders and stranded airline passengers, changing accents, posture, costumes and even the way they sing as they become someone new.
The result is a production that moves the audience through humour, confusion, fear, grief and eventually hope, often within only a few minutes.
Director Karen Langlois said that pace is intentional.
“This one never stops,” she said.
Langlois said there are only a few moments in the roughly hour-and-40-minute production where music is absent. Songs flow into scenes and scenes into songs, with only a few natural places for applause.
“You should feel like that intensity that those people probably felt during those intense five days in Gander,” she said.
That intensity is balanced by some genuinely funny moments.
The comedy is handled carefully by the cast and never feels disconnected from the seriousness of what happened. Langlois said that balance was something the performers discussed during rehearsals.
“There were a few moments that we really talked about together as a cast to make sure that we’re not belittling or making fun of moments that should not be made fun of,” she said.
The production also succeeds in creating a strong sense of Newfoundland.
Performers Jacelyn Perret (left) and Brenner Holash (right) take the stage during Broadway North Theatre Company’s production of Come From Away at the E.A. Rawlinson Centre.
The accents are convincing without becoming difficult to understand, and the music, costumes and performances help make the E.A. Rawlinson Centre stage feel far removed from Saskatchewan.
Langlois said Newfoundland-born dialect coach Sam Kenny worked with the cast.
“We didn’t do it in a very, very strong way, so that everybody could still understand what we were saying,” Langlois said.
The cast’s ability to change characters is one of the production’s strongest features.
Each performer plays several people, including Gander residents and passengers from different parts of the world. Langlois said those transformations depend on quick costume changes, dialect and physical movement.
“Each person when they’re changing from that Newfoundlander to the plane person, their physical characteristics have to change,” she said.
Those changes extend to the singing. Voices and delivery shift with the characters, helping make the transformations clear even when the same actor has been onstage only moments earlier as someone else.
The vocals throughout the production are strong, and the cast handles both the large musical moments and the quieter emotional ones effectively.
Visually, Come From Away is one of Broadway North’s simpler productions in terms of set pieces and props.
Compared with shows such as The Wizard of Oz or Grease, there are fewer large physical elements on stage. That does not make the production feel smaller. If anything, it puts more responsibility on the performers, who create different places, people and situations through acting, movement, voice and timing.
The staging may be simpler, but the production itself is anything but. It grows larger in the mind as the story unfolds.
Cory Philley, general manager of the E.A. Rawlinson Centre, is also part of the cast as Claude, the mayor of Gander, along with several other roles.
Philley said all of the actors are volunteering their time for the production.
“They’re doing it because they love it, and it really comes across,” she said.
Philley, who began her career as an actor in Vancouver, said returning to the stage felt familiar.
“It’s just a little bit like coming home,” she said.
Come From Away is also surprisingly educational.
Beyond the story of the 38 planes diverted to Gander after the Sept. 11 attacks, the musical shows how community and service organizations became part of the response.
Langlois said groups including the Legion, Elks, Salvation Army and SPCA were among organizations involved in helping during that period. Local service groups and first responders are also being recognized during different performances of the Prince Albert production.
For younger audience members, or for people who did not grow up in Canada, some of that history may be unfamiliar.
But the production does more than revisit history.
At several points, its message feels strikingly current.
Philley said the story shows what can happen when people cross national, ethnic and ideological boundaries to help others in crisis.
“What connects us is more than what divides us,” she said.
Langlois made a similar point.
“It’s not about the political landscape or what happened,” she said. “It’s about how loving people can be.”
That is ultimately where Come From Away lands.
It recreates the chaos of one of the most frightening moments in recent history, but refuses to remain there. Instead, it shows what ordinary people did next, and how much can be created on a stage when the performers themselves are trusted to carry the story.
arjun.pillai@paherald.sk.ca
