Play: Revival of the Fittest

 Come From Away by Irene Sankoff & David Hein, Directed by Brian Ivie Seattle Rep through Jan 4

So in the face of the atmospheric river pummeling the Seattle area, the Lovely Bride and I bundled ourselves out to the second performance for the Seattle Rep season, a revival of a musical we saw way back in 2015. OK, its a revival, I thought, I've seen more than enough versions of the same Shakespeare play, or works by August Wilson, so I thought I could manage a new version of a feel-good musical about 9/11. I can do this fairly dispassionately.

Not really. I was in tears after the first five minutes, and kept quietly weeping at points throughout the play. Looking at my original review, I had been emotionally touched, but it felt harder this time. Maybe its post-tramatic stress, maybe it was old memories being excavated, maybe it was just some things going on in my personal life, but I tired of trying to surreptitiously wipe the tears from my eyes and just let them run down my cheeks. The heck with it.

Everyone has their own 9/11 stories, like my parents had Pearl Harbor stories (coming home from church and hearing about it on the radio in the living room). And seeing the performance on Pearl Harbor Day may have had something to with my reaction as well. The one thing I haven't mentioned before about it in this space was the silence in the skies in the week that followed. We are on the opposite hill in the Green River valley from SeaTac, and just south of both the Renton airport and Boeing Field, so while we don't get a lot of airplane noise, there is enough of a background rumbling from time to time to make us aware of its existence. But in the week that followed 9/11, there was nothing. And oppressive silence. It was a ghost in my memory until the play brought it all back to me.

Anyway,

Come From Away is a feel-good musical about 9/11. After the four passenger jets hit, all air traffic was grounded, and planes in the air had to land ASAP. A lot of the transatlantic flights, like 38 planes, include jumbos, had to come down in Newfoundland, in a small airport near the town of Gander (back in the day before jet travel, planes would fly to Newfoundland, refuel, and make the jump across the Atlantic. My father went to war on a bomber that refueled there). So the airfield was larger than was then-needed for the present day, until 38 planes had to touch down and 9000 passengers were grounded for the better part of the week.

The musical is about those passengers and the nearby towns (Gander and others) who suddenly had to take care of the new arrivals. It is a normal day until all hell breaks loose as the passengers worry, panic, try to get in touch with loved ones, and find out what happened, while the townies struggle to get basic support for the new arrivals, with no idea how long the emergency would last. There are all sorts of stories spinning out of the situation - the pilot that can no longer fly, the mother whose son is fireman in NYC, a couple gets together, another couple breaks up, a rabbi has to set up a kosher kitchen, the local ASPCA has to deal with all the animals trapped in the luggage compartments (including a couple chimps). 

And the actors pull it off incredibly well. The cast - a massive (for modern theater) dozen actors, plus a six-member band are on stage for the duration of the performance, and move effortless between characters, such that I did not recognize them when they transformed. Accents and mannerisms are added and dropped with each costume changes. And a lot of the folk on stage are locals that I have seen at other performances in the Seattle Area, though even many of them are making "Their Seattle Rep debuts".  And that's something I love about local theatre, particularly if they create such strong performances.

And the performances are strong, the songs are excellent, and the action moves swiftly from beginning to end. There is not any dead spots here - most of the scenes are frenetic and even the slow songs have an emotional weight that pushes them through. There are strong Celtic/Irish/Nor'easter flavor to the music, including a lot of stomping and dancing. And the actors play their own instruments on-stage, which is something I don't remember from the original. It is a conceit that works incredibly well.

Is there one actor to single out? Not really, because they are ALL that good, and put everything out on the stage to a packed house. It was really an ensemble job, and all of them were frankly amazing. 

Can I quibble about anything? Sure. The revival felt over-produced as far as stagecraft. The original we saw (pre-Broadway) worked from a mostly-empty stage, with chairs and boxes brought on from the periphery. This version set up the framing device of a 10-year reunion by physically setting it in the Gander high school gym, complete with basketball hoops folded up along the walls. I don't know if all that was needed, since the action at the center quickly took hold and dominated the space.

So, is there a moral here? People pull together in times of stress and heartbreak? Canadians are basically nice? I can't exactly say, but this is revival that you should attend. It is more than worth it. Good job, mates. 

More later, 

Meanwhile: Twenty Years Later

 

More later,

Play: The Demolished Man

Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, directed by Kimberly Senior, Seattle Rep, Through 31 January.

While the Seahawks have ended their football hopes for the year, the REP continues with one of the strongest seasons I have seen for years. The most recent addition is the dark one-act Disgraced, which takes the theatrical trope of the dinner party and pulls it off.

Amir (Bernard White) is what Tom Wolfe would call a Master of the Universe. He is a corporate lawyer in Manhattan who can get Knicks tickets and whose name appears every so often in the Times. He has a stylish Manhattan apartment and an adoring wife Emily (Nisi Sturgis), an artist with a chance at a breakout show. That show is put together by Isaac (J Anthony Crane) whose wife Jory (Zakiya Young) works with Amir at the law firm. They have dinner together.

But Amir has misrepresented himself. He is an apostate Muslim who rejects his faith and heritage to embrace the American ideals of achievement. He has changed his name and lets his co-workers think of him as an Indian, not a Pakistani. He is convinced that, should he be thought of as a Muslim, his world will fall apart.

And he's right. Starting with a favor for his more devout and political nephew (Behzad Dabu), Amir's life spirals out of control, culminating in an explosive dinner party with Isaac and Jory where deeper secrets are revealed and lives are sabotaged.

The Portrait of Juan de Paleja by
Diego Velazquez figures in all this as well.

Amir's story is about race, religion, and heritage. But it is also about infidelity, social climbing, opportunities and art. The two sets of themes cannot be separated, and Akhtar does a fantastic job conjoining them. This is a troubling, unsettling play, and brilliant for it. Political without being polemic, it cricles the subjects and takes stabs from all sides. It is a play which does no hold still long enough to deliver a message one way or another and demands thought and consideration.

The actors are amazing. None of the characters are pure or innocent, all are packing their own betrayals and secrets which contribute to the destruction of Amir's public facade and private pride. The actors balance that public and private face expertly, creating characters with a sense of story and history.

There is mention of Moors early on, which evokes Othello, but this is an Othello with an internalized Iago acting towards his destruction. Amir has more in common with Eddie from A View from The Bridge, where his self-image, pride, and rejection of his heritage sows the seeds of his own fall from grace.

I have railed in this space about dinner-party plays, which take place in a relatively compact space and time and where everyone is nice and proper at the beginning and engaging in cannibalism by the end. And I often think that thing swould be better is someone just left the room, but that never happens. Akhtar stretches out the time frame with several scenes leading to the disastrous dinner, and DOES allow the character the freedom to get out of the room as opposed to immediately turning back on each other in another round of backbiting. In doing so he deepens the reality of the world, allows secrets to come out, and show that the characters are not just rats in a physical box, though they may be trapped in a metaphorical box of their own making.

I'm still working my way through this, which is always a good sign for a play. The play has gotten raves and rightly slow as disturbing and thoughtful theatre. Worth seeing.

More later,

Play: Taking a Gander

Come From Away by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Directed by Christopher Ashley, through December 13. Seattle Rep.

Wow.

This is probably the most difficult glowing review I've ever written. I've put down my thoughts on 9/11 elsewhere, and thought that, coming up on 15 years since the event, I was well clear of the emotion and the heartache of that day. But I was wrong, and have had to start this a couple times already. And during the performance my icy old heart may have calved off a few bergs and I may have knuckled back the tears at the corners of my eyes. Its that good.

Anyway, in recording some of the histories of others, I previously mentioned that two friends were flying back from Europe that day. They felt the plane shift beneath them and watched the light of the sun shift from the left-hand windows to the right-hand ones. They has turned around and were going back to the continent, because Newfoundland was already full from planes that were already closer to the states.

Gander Airport, Newfoundland, after 9/11

This musical is about those people in Newfoundland, near the town of Gander, where a huge airport had been built back in the days when the jets had to stop for refueling there before pressing on. Gander is a small town of about 9000 people. And thirty-six planes set down there in the wake of 9/11, sudden arrivals in their small town. This musical is about the Newfoundlanders and the Plane People.

And it is very, very good.

Part of it is because of the cast. All are strong-voiced (and miked up), good singers, excellent dancers, and good actors. There are a dozen in the company (not including another six or so in the band) who take on the hundreds involved in the event. Actors change characters with surprising grace. Lee MacDougall is both an air traffic controller married to a veterinarian among the Ganders and a shy British executive who comes off as a polite, likeable Jeremy Clarkson. Chad Kimball is one of the two Collins, a gay couple, as well as the striking school bus driver leader. Casear Samayoa is his boyfriend and an Egyptian chef separated from the others by his origins. Jenn Colella  rocks as both a local librarian and the Captain of one of the flight. And Joel Hatch hangs a lampshade on it all by portraying every mayor in Newfoundland. All of them are amazing as they blend back into the company to create a horde of characters on the stage.

And the stage. Minimalist, with trees surrounding a rotating center. Band tucked in the corner. The center is everything - bar, Tim Hortons, plane interiors, all built and deconstructed with chairs and tables, all worked seamlessly with the action on the stage. The pacing is intense and continual and relentless, and the music is perfect. This is a well-oiled theatrical machine, perfected by the La Jolla Playhouse, and powered by passion and drive.

The story comes at you full force. Opening on the ground in Gander, then up to the planes where confusion reigns, then into the towers as everyone reroutes them back onto the ground as heavy lifter after heavy lifter comes onto the field. The townspeople scrambling to handle some 9000 new additions. And against it the personal stories - most of them pretty straightforward - the strangers who meet and hit it off, the gay couple whose relationship is challenged, the city guy told to go out and take everyone's backyard grill for a cook-out - no, really, they won't mind. The characters are a bit broad - the plane people connect because they're the people you always see at the airports, the Gander folk because they would not be out of place in an episode of Red Green or even A Prairie Home Companion. Yeah, Lake Woebegone via the coastal provinces.

I look at the past few paragraphs - actors playing multiple roles, empty stage, shifting locations quickly. This is all Brecht's epic theater, without the political agenda and packed with intentionally sympathetic characters. Remember how I said that epic theater has become just theater. Here's an example. And it is used to get you by the feels and drag you through 100 minutes of intensity.

The timing of the play is something, both seasonal and national. Seasonal because we stand on the cusp of that busiest of holidays when everyone is visiting friends and family for a big meal. And national because as in the wake of the Paris attacks, some among us are actually so hard-hearted and foolish to blame refugees for the situation. (And on a note on that, a friend mentioned that our home town, is minority majority. To that I will add that we have 4000+ people of refugee status in our little town of Kent already, and the 10K everyone is kicking about is a drop in the bucket).

So yes, this is your holiday play. Positive. Uplifting. Gives you hope in your fellow man. Go see it. It is already the hot ticket item, and when we got to the theater there was a line fifty people deep at the sales booth. Yeah, you're going to hit some post traumatic stress. And yeah, you're going to cheer the band as they do one more encore number.

More later,

Meanwhile, 14 Years Ago

More later,

Nine Years

More later,

Eight Years Ago

More later,

Anniversary

Not to be a nag, but it has been six years since some maniacs flew airplanes into buildings, and the guy responsible is still at large.

I have more to say on this, but that about sums it up, for the moment.

More later,