Julie Shaw, Cody Proctor, and the cast of Come From Away (Don Ipock)
This month marks the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, and theatres around the world are marking the event with productions of a sweet show about a Canadian community stepping up to care for displaced travellers.
According to a report from The New York Times, 146 productions of Come From Away are being mounted worldwide this month. That fact isn’t exactly surprising. The 2017 musical was already popular—according to another report from the Times, it was last season’s most-produced show in the United States—and the anniversary makes it an appealing choice for regional theatres. But the show’s ubiquity doesn’t undercut its specialness, especially when the production is as well done as the one currently onstage at KCRep.
Come From Away is set in Gander, a tiny Newfoundland town that happens to have a large airport, left over from an era when transatlantic flights required use of the remote refueling location. In the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks in New York, more than three dozen planes carrying about 7,000 people—approximately the existing population of the town itself—were diverted to the airport, and the good people of Gander had to figure out how to accommodate them.
The logistics of that task might have been a daunting undertaking, but there was never a question of whether the people of Gander would be up to it. Extreme kindness is this town’s default setting, and it permeates every moment of the show.
As the islanders get to work and the passengers try to process the news of what’s happened, a smattering of mini subplots (and catchy songs) emerge. There are two strangers who find themselves drawn to each other, a gay couple working through pretty standard relationship issues under extraordinary circumstances, a mother desperately waiting for a call from her New York firefighter son, and the manager of the local SPCA singlehandedly working to find and care for any animals stored in the cargo holds of the planes, just to name a few. All of the show’s characters are based on or inspired by real stories, from interviews conducted during the process of developing the show.
Every member of the cast plays both a Gander resident and a flight passenger, with most taking on even more parts. The constant character rotation underscores the feeling of barely controlled chaos running through the events of the play. With so many characters, very few of them get much in the way of real development. Those who do—the show’s two main romantic couples and a handful of others—have what you could call micro-journeys. The plane’s captain gets an entire song dedicated to her (truly impressive) backstory. Everyone else is a small but colorful puzzle piece making up the larger picture of this story.
That’s not to say that the characters aren’t impactful. They most definitely are. I would not recommend seeing this show without tissues handy. Irene Sankoff and David Hein, who wrote the book, lyrics, and music, do not take a light touch as they pull at our heartstrings, and they don’t let up. It helps that the entire cast, under the direction of Stuart Carden, gives full, beautiful performances across the board. There were still a few characters that I wanted to see more from, most especially Ali (Adam Qutaishat), an Egyptian Muslim passenger who faces discrimination and isolation. But overall, Come From Away is about the collective story more than individual journeys, and that never feels stretched thin.
As always, KCRep’s design elements are on point. The stage is framed by the bare scaffolding of an airplane hangar, and designer Courtney O’Neill keeps the set pieces streamlined, rolling in a set of aircraft stairs or a diner counter to set the scene. Erica Lauren Maholmes’s lighting does a beautiful job of transporting us between locations and localizing the action, and even creating some truly beautiful Canadian sunsets.
Like O’Neill’s sets, Jenny Green’s costumes are deceptively simple. All of the characters are distinctly “real people,” Canadian townsfolk and passengers dressed for a day of travel (bearing in mind everyone is switching rapidly between the two categories), and Green is able to thread the needle with outfits that are realistic and elegantly mundane without being boring.
On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the events of Come From Away are old enough to be considered historical. But the story of communities coming together to care for one another is timeless, and as needed now as it ever was.
“Come From Away” runs at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Spencer Theatre, 4949 Cherry St) through September 20. For more information, visit kcrep.org.
