on the northeast tip of North America

[raven]

I saw Come From Away this week, on its last day but one in London, and I'm still thinking about it. It's a musical based on a real bit of history: on 9/11, as we know, all US airspace was closed with no notice, meaning any inbound aircraft already over the Atlantic had to either turn back towards Europe or set down in at the nearest airport outside the US. In practice, that meant one of a number of Canadian airports, of which the most significant was Gander, Newfoundland. Fifty years earlier, all transatlantic aircraft used to stop at Gander or Keflavik for refuelling, and the Gander airport is still one of the world's largest for all it only hosts a handful of flights.

So thirty-eight aircraft and their 7000 passengers landed in Gander, a town of 10,000 people, on a wild, remote, storm-shattered island. And Come From Away is a true story of what happens when that happens: how the 10,000 people took care of the 7000 people, with no notion or who they were, what they'd want or need, while around them the world had irrevocably changed. It's full of rich, beautiful detail, no story as such but textured historical documentary that works so well as a musical. There's a little romance, a little break-up, and other, more complicated little tales. One of the songs is about Beverly Bass, the first woman to captain a commercial airliner, and the first woman to lead an all female flight crew in the history of commercial aviation. Another song is about passengers from north Africa who are forced to get off a bus in a dark forest of strangers, that they think must be soldiers. But the passengers don't speak English, and their hosts don't even know what language they speak. And violence feels unutterably close - until one of the Newfoundlanders takes a Bible from one of the passengers, and looks up a verse that he can only find by number and points it out to everyone: be anxious for nothing. Be not afraid.

Another little story is about one of the Newfoundlanders visiting one of the passengers, an Orthodox rabbi, to say, I was born in Poland, I think. My parents sent me here and said I should never tell anyone I was Jewish, not ever. Not even my wife. But now I'm an old man, and now you've come. Here you are.

That's the motif that occurs over and over. "you are here" - you are on this impossibly remote island that you've never heard of, but also, you are here. Here, after everything that's happened. Here, encased by space and time and selfhood. You are here. I really love it.

And the other thing I find kind of... I don't know if funny is the word, but. I love the constant repetition of the theme, that this place is at the far north of a continent, on the edge of the Atlantic, on this storm-shattered island where a river meets the sea. Gander is; but so are we. We are here. You are here.

Anyway. It is truly lovely, and I'm so glad I saw it and I don't know why I didn't years ago. I think I'll actually have to wait for a revival to see it again, but I will.

Comments

[asakiyume]

be anxious for nothing. Be not afraid.

This brought tears to my eyes. And the story that follows, too.

I knew about the fact that inspired this musical, but not about the musical. Lovely.

My mother-in-law was set to fly back to the UK on 9/12. Well. Meanwhile, she happened to know that friends of hers, a couple around her age, were visiting New England. They too were stranded, so they stayed in our house too until the skies opened again.

[raven]

I do wonder how many little stories of kind hospitality like yours there were. That was the only concrete effect of 9/11 I actually saw - when I went back to school, every year group had maybe one or two missing people because they'd been on holiday in America and they hadn't made their way back yet. So many little stories of displacement. But it's a beautiful musical! Absolutely worth it, if you ever get the chance.

[jo]

I have no idea if this will be geoblocked for you, but you might enjoy this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTNDRvUqVQA

[raven]

I can see it! Thank you so much.

[kass]

Oh this sounds so beautiful.

[raven]

It's really lovely!

[chasing_silver]

Come From Away is one of my favourite musicals! The Canadian pride is strong for me haha. I just love it, though. Such a feel good, emotional story.

[raven]

Right? It's just so lovely, I wish I'd seen it a long time ago.

[chestnut_pod]

I loved reading this review; it's beautiful.

[raven]

Thank you, I'm glad!

[genarti]

Isn't it lovely? I saw it with my parents a couple of years back, and some parts of course worked for me better than others, but as a sort of mosaic tale of community and human good in uncertain overwhelming times it really, really resonated.

This is a beautiful review, too. <3

[raven]

Thank you. <3 I am a little blown away by how much I loved it! The mosaic storytelling - yes.

[scintilla10]

I saw Come From Away several years ago, and it completely stayed with me, for all the reasons you mention. Your review made me tear up, remembering the way the show made me feel. ♥

[raven]

Oh! Thank you for telling me so. <3

[philomytha]

This sounds amazing and now I desperately want to see this too.

[raven]

I think you would love it, partly because of the story and partly because of your interest in the very early years of commercial aviation. 😂

[philomytha]

It doesn't look like the tour's coming anywhere near me, but I have discovered a filmed version of the Broadway production I can watch :-D

(And yes, I have been reading a book about female firsts in aviation; it's British in focus so Beverley Bass isn't in it but she'd fit right in....)

[philomytha]

Just coming back to say, I watched the filmed version and it was wonderful and I adored it and also cried buckets, thank you for the rec!

[raven]

Awww! Oh, I am so glad you liked it too.

[rmc28]

Funnily enough I was chatting about Come From Away on Saturday, reminiscing with a friend who'd seen it. I managed to see it once in London, in 2019 I think, and basically cried all the way through.

I can't listen to the soundtrack without crying either, but I do now and again at home where I won't alarm anyone. I really love the song around the "be not afraid" verse, the human-scale seeing one another and finding that solution to the communication barrier. And of course I love Beverly Bass's song, Me and the Sky, and its devastating end.

[raven]

I have been listening to the soundtrack obsessively this week, which is no good when you need to take the Tube and behave like a normal person in public. 😂

[sophia_sol]

What a lovely review. I've been hearing good things about this musical for years and I hope that someday I will be able to see it too!

[raven]

I hope you can! It is lovely.

[glinda]

Years ago I read an article about the folks stranded in the airports after 9/11, I'd forgotten it was called Gander, but I remember being fascinated by the stories. I didn't know that's what the musical was about but that sounds lovely. (Be anxious for nothing. <3)

[raven]

I wonder if the article you read had something to do with The Day The World Came To Town - it's a journalist's account of the same story, that had a significant impact on the musical. I think you'd like it.

[glinda]

It may well have done. From my vague recollection it was a Guardian long read, but it may have been an article the author of the book wrote that was just linked in another story. Possibly one about airports that are disproportionately large for where they are for historical reasons - one of the airports on the West Coast of Ireland is like that as it used to be the last fuelling stop before, well, Gander. (When I was working in a call centre in 2008/9 I did a lot of reading the Guardian online, and also the New York Times - in those pre-pay-wall days - so it could have been either paper. That was longer ago than I'd like to think about so the details are a bit fuzzy!)

[macadamanaity]

It's a lovely show. My fiddle teacher and friend was the originating fiddler in the show before and after it came to Broadway so I've seen it many times (one time Beverly Bass was sitting directly in front of us -- apparently she was obsessed and came to see it fairly regularly during it's run).

If you've seen the recorded version on Apple TV, you'll see my teacher performing (you saw her at Halloween last year!) - we're so proud. She also met her partner on the show, the piano/accordion player/conductor another now-friend. At the time when the show was on Broadway, members of the cast would regularly turn up at sessions, sometimes after the show.

I'll say the producers of the show did not treat all of their people very well (not unusual for Broadway) and I think most who were in it have complicated feelings about it now, but they were all and remain respectful of and pleased at the emotional connection the show made with its audience.

[raven]

Oh, wow, that's amazing, thank you for telling me that! I was planning to watch the recorded version I will look out for her. When walking out the theatre I actually did say to my friends, where the hell did they find a real Canadian Maritimes fiddler and for London I still don't know but for Broadway I should have known!

[macadamanaity]

Heh. Well Caitlin's Alaskan who plays in an Irish-ish tradition. Of the musicians in the original run the only one from Newfoundland was the bodhran player (a great dude). I remember in the early days she was really annoyed at how NOT traditional the music they had to play was. They were also really annoyed at the original polka choices as being too cheesy (most of the true trad stuff is polkas) and pushed them a little to evolve them (though polkas, I believe, are pretty popular in the NF trad styles).

I just got nosy and looked up the fiddler for the london production and it looks like the fiddler is Ruth Elder who is more classical violin-focused, but is Welsh.

[no_detective]

i saw it years ago on broadway and oh, your review brought back so many moments of emotional resonance - it stayed with me for a long time, and the memory of it feels so nourishing to the spirit. thank you for writing about your experience of the show ♥

[raven]

Oh, that's so nice to hear.

[sasha_feather]

I loved reading your review! What a good musical.

[pushkin666]

This is not a musical I'm aware of and it sounds just wonderful. I will look it up. I remember 9/11 so well (we were on the last flight allowed back into Stansted that day before the whole airport shut down), and we got off the plane to find out from our friend what had occured, although it was clear from the reactions of the staff on the plane that something was up. The world, as you said, had changed in so many ways but it also still showed the goodness of people. So many people didn't come home that day.

Anyway, the musical sounds wonderful and I'm going to look up more about this.

[raven]

It is lovely, you should go and see it! It's on at the Lowry all of Dec, I even thought about coming up to Salford but couldn't quite make it work.

[pushkin666]

I like the Lowry. Only two trams from mine, or an uber if I'm being lazy so relatively easy to get to. I'm going to see if there's any tickets left. I'm also recommending the book to my work bookclub this month as our theme is history, and this is still history even though it's recent.