Farewell to the Rock: A Eulogy for Come From Away

I still don’t know how to feel when 9/11 gets brought up.

I was born in 1999; I have no memory of it. Educating oneself and listening to those who remember is one thing, but I will never truly understand what it felt like that day, or how it feels each year. Based on the testimony of others, it doesn’t seem like there’s a true answer, or a single feeling that can describe it all. Confusion and sorrow and anger and fear all piled on top of each other until they coalesced into something that does not have a name.

There is only one thing in the world that has ever really made me understand what it was like to live through the attack: Come From Away, the Broadway musical I just saw for the third (and final) time.

Come From Away originally debuted as part of the 2017 season. Written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, it tells the story of the town of Gander, Newfoundland, and their participation in Operation Yellow Ribbon, the initiative to safely re-route planes on September 11, 2001. Over 7,000 people touched down in Gander that day, and the town housed them for five days. One would think that Come From Away would be a dour affair, but it’s anything but. In fact, it’s one of the most lighthearted and funny shows to grace the Broadway stage in years, all the while being supported by one of the most hardworking and talented ensembles ever. Every actor plays more than one character and throws their whole soul into being both an individual and part of a moving, working unit. This is to say nothing about the music, which is warm as can be and features instrumentation like nothing you’ve ever heard. Even on a first listen, Sankoff and Hein’s score feels like home.

“Home” is one of the central themes at the heart of this show. Gander is now a town of strangers. Nobody knows each other, everyone is confused and frightened out of their minds, but the town welcomes them in spite of it all. It would have been so much easier to just do the bare minimum for these people, but the town chose to do everything in their power to accommodate, support, and provide refuge. Diane and Nick begin a spontaneous yet powerful romance, Bob grows more and more at ease with letting his guard down, and even the ever-anxious Hannah, who spends all her time by the phone waiting for news about her missing firefighter son, is given moments of respite in the form of teacher Beulla by her side.

Then they return home.

The number “Something’s Missing” is the moment where the mirror is held up, and the moment where Come From Away turns from a sweet and fun little show to the most profound portrayal of trauma the theatre has seen in years. After five days of joy, the plane people return home. The town residents get back to work. And they feel…well, that’s the thing: they don’t know what to feel. They have to return to normal, but normal doesn’t seem to exist anymore. The relationships which were once beautiful and sacred fall apart under the weight of the ordeal that forged them. The joy feels cruel and the safety feels selfish. Hannah’s son is gone. We always knew it deep down, but hearing it confirmed doesn’t make it hurt any less. Bob sums it all up best: “Back at my dad’s house, I look out the window at this view I’ve looked at my whole life, and now a part of it…something’s missing.”

I have no memory of 9/11, but the COVID-19 pandemic upended life in a similar fashion. In the thick of the first quarantine, my family was preparing to move out of the home I’d lived in all my life. I found myself having to process the weight of a pandemic and the loss of my childhood all at once. I felt the same way we all did: like a plane person. Totally stranded. Alone, and confused, and suddenly burdened with that emotion that has no name. Two years later, I still find myself feeling it. I walk the other way when I see people without masks, despite knowing that they probably pose no threat. I think about my relationship, which started in lockdown, and I worry that the love I feel is a betrayal to the dead. I spy the Holiday Inn sign on the highway and I start crying, because the Holiday Inn sign used to mean that we were on our way home, and it will never mean that again. That view I’ve looked at my whole life; now a part of it…well, you know.

Something’s gone. Something’s over. Nothing will ever be the same. How do we move on?

Well, we don’t. Not really. We move forward. We do what we can, day by day. We feel that emotion that has no name and we find the specks of joy scattered around it. We try to be the kind of person who opens their world and heart to a total stranger and expects nothing in return. In the words of the Mayor, “we honor what was lost. But we also commemorate what we found.”

When I started writing this piece in 2021, I ended it with a plea for readers to go see Come From Away. I wrote that ending at a time when I thought it would run forever — when saying “if you are to see any Broadway show, let it be this one” could always apply. True, there are still chances left to see the show between now and October 2, 2022 (and that plea certainly still applies), but those chances are limited. The truth is beginning to set in: Come From Away is closing. We have to say goodbye.

Forever would have been nice, but a 1,670-performance run — the longest in Schoenfeld Theatre history — ain’t half bad. Come From Away, thank you for your sheer, unadulterated joy. Thank you for your history. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for healing what we didn’t know was broken. I will love you forever.

Goodbye.