A musical about 9/11? When I first heard about Come from Away, a musical set on that most infamous day of my lifetime I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. However, after it made its successful Broadway debut and garnered a bunch of Tony nominations, I looked forward to seeing it for myself and was excited to see it on this season’s Fox Cities Performing Arts Center schedule.
This is what I knew before seeing the show Tuesday night at the PAC…It’s the story of the people of Gander, Newfoundland, a town with roughly the population of Little Chute. After the horrific events of the morning of 9/11, the FAA closed US airspace and 38 commercial airliners, bearing over 7000 passengers, landed in Gander and were stranded in the remote Canadian town for the next few days. During that time, the locals worked together to feed, clothe and house the dispossessed and never asked for as much as a “thank you”.
I figured it would be a somber meditation on what we can all do when we work together to help others. What I was NOT expecting was that the show would be as FUNNY and WILDLY ENTERTAINING as Come From Away is. The play, with the help of its universally strong cast (and band), does an amazing job of finding the humor in the humanity. There’s singing, there’s dancing and there’s fish kissing! Yes, fish kissing! (What can I say? Those Newfies are a bunch of codsuckers!)
And for those of you who find three-hour musicals too taxing on your butt or kidneys, Come From Away is a brisk one hour and forty minutes.
I don’t remember the last time a PAC crowd EXPLODED with applause like that at the end of a show. This wasn’t one of those times that the show ends and a few people stand and then a few more and slowly they give a perfunctory and begrudging standing ovation. Nope. Folks leapt to their feet and most even stayed in the aisle jamming to the band after the curtain call. Eventually, we exited the theater, our hearts filled with laughter and joy and (at least for a while) a much deeper appreciation of the humor, warmth and decency of our fellow man. -Rick-
