COME FROM AWAY
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30/09/2022 until 16/12/2022
9/11 was a world-changing event. A tragedy of enormous scale. Workers were trapped by flames high up in the Manhattan sky. 20 years later the sheer human horror and scale of this audacious act of terror still strike a sickening chord.
So this is appropriate material for a musical? Even in the events of history that plumb the depraved depths of human experience, there are positives. Seek and yea shall find. Such is the genius in idea and execution of Irene Sankoff and David Hein. COME FROM AWAY a glorious, blink and you will miss it, breathless piece of storytelling. One act. Music theatre on steroids. Joyful and uplifting. The Comedy Theatre Melbourne revisited. Some cast changes, but even more celebratory.
Little unassuming, trapped in blissful yesterdays, Gander airport, is the unlikely setting, and it’s community, the unwitting stars of a true, real-life drama as the 9/11 flights are diverted away from the skies of the USA.
From a peaceful setting to a seismic shift of the status quo, multiple jumbos arriving at the airport, and numerous extraordinary real-life stories, mini-dramas, friendships unfolding, and like the end of Covid lockdown, an almost return to normal at the exhilarating end, but something has changed.
A fun, folksy live Irish knees up, as the score. Singing and choreography never seeming inappropriate. The story never lingering, indulging , or rolling in the tragedy that was unfolding.
Thanks to Christopher Ashley and Kelly Devine for a sheer party on stage in terms of direction. Thanks to the Melbourne cast for their exuberance, athleticism, stoicism, and boundless joy. This piece goes way past Hamilton and Mormon in providing unmitigated euphoria at the theatre.
Reviewed by Warren Wills