The cast of Mirvish production Come From Away now back on stage in Toronto after an almost three-year hiatus.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
- Come From Away
- At Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto
- Book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein
- Directed by Christopher Ashley
- Starring Kyle Brown, Saccha Dennis, Steffi DiDomenicantonio, Barbara Fulton, Lisa Horner, James Kall, Jeff Madden, Ali Momen, Cory O’Brien, Kristen Peace, David Silvestri, Cailin Stadnyk
Critic’s Pick
“Welcome Back to the Rock!”
So say the pins handed out by Come From Away ushers when you exit the show, now back on stage in Toronto after an almost three-year hiatus. I’ll wear mine proudly around town.
How heartening to see this record-breaking Canadian musical set in Gander, N.L. – with as strong a cast as its ever had, in its original production that hasn’t lost any sharpness – return to the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
It’s not only that this 1,244-seat Edwardian jewel-box is the space where this feel-good show about opening your hearts to strangers in need has always felt most at home.
It’s that the unlikely resurrection of the original Canadian production – the most commercially successful production of a Canadian-written show of all time when it was shuttered – is a symbol of how the country’s theatre industry, from coast to coast to coast, has refused to throw in the towel in these challenging times.
Shuttered not once but twice owing to government restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Come From Away is now back thanks to an innovative partnership between Mirvish Productions and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre. And a show that is about keeping your sense of humour and heart during a historic crisis is now itself a symbol of that kind of resilience.
There’s not much new left for this theatre critic to say on a seventh – or is it eighth? – viewing of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s semi-documentary musical retelling of what happened in Gander in the week after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But every time I see it, I’m impressed anew at how the rousing music and detail-filled dialogue are so artfully interwoven – and how the authors, as well as the actors, who all play multiple parts, shift so smoothly in perspective between the roll-up-your-sleeves locals and stunned plane passengers from around the world. Thirty-eight planes were diverted to Gander after U.S. airspace was closed, and the population of the town nearly doubled for a week.
I’ve become intimately familiar with every beat of director Christopher Ashley’s Tony-winning propulsive staging and every movement in Kelly Devine’s human-size choreography. And yet, at a certain point, the critic in me always just turns off, and I get pulled emotionally into these stories, inspired by real ones, of people waiting to hear news from loved ones in New York or who had been in the air.
What does feel new about this return production, paradoxically, are the performances from what is mostly the same cast who opened the show in Toronto back in 2018.
Canadian performers such as Lisa Horner, Barbara Fulton, Saccha Dennis, James Kall – they’re all actors who have no doubt been through a professional wringer these past four years, and they seem have to channelled all of that into deepened performances.
Perhaps the most moving one now comes from Ali Momen, playing a Muslim character who doesn’t get the welcome mat rolled out for him by the locals. His pain-filled performance, already good, has matured into a kind of prism through which you can see into the future.
As for Cailin Stadnyk, the former standby now taking on the central role of the pilot Beverley Bass, she’s not second-rate but sensational. She’d get a mid-show standing ovation for her rendition of the anthem to aviation called Me and the Sky – if the show’s creators hadn’t planted an emotional bomb in its final lyrics and been so committed to keeping the story moving and focused on the collective.
Having already extended to March, 2025, Come From Away is now set to finally take its proper place in the history books as the third-longest running show in Mirvish Productions history after Mamma Mia! and The Lion King.
Sure, the record has an asterisk or three beside it – but after a long run of the biggest shows in Toronto being American or British, here is a homegrown hit to match them. Maybe we can build back better.
Come From Away runs to March 2.