The cast of Come from Away at Civic Theatre

Matthew Murphy

La Jolla Playhouse is a hitmaker, no doubt about it. The Who’s Tommy, Jersey Boys, and Memphis were all developed in our jewel by the sea and went on to Broadway and nationwide acclaim. The latest to join their ranks is Come from Away, the true story of 7,000 airline passengers who were diverted to the tiny town of Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001. It was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and won Best Direction for La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.

Ashley and choreographer Kelly Devine have stayed with the show from its original run, to Broadway, to the national tour that’s at the Civic Theatre for one short week. If readers don’t have tickets yet, stop reading and buy them now (trust me)—there’s only five performances left.

The live show is a can’t-miss experience, even if you’ve already seen the filmed performance, which was released on Apple TV last year while most of Broadway was still shut down due to COVID. I had seen it—yet I forgot how much comedy there is in the show. Maybe because September 11 is surpassed only by cancer in its ability to thud a story to a sudden halt. I’ve seen too many plays where references to the attacks are simply dropped in, nuance-free—even as a surprise—for (one assumes) an easy emotional reaction.

This is not one of those plays. It’s woven through with loss without becoming a play about trauma, in part because its ensemble has so many individual stories to tell. The whole cast takes on at least dual roles (often triple or more), switching on a dime between heavy Newfinese accents and those from all over the world. As the residents of Gander, they scramble to prepare for a sudden doubling of their town’s population; and as those who’ve “come from away,” they wait for answers—about whether their family in New York are okay, about when they’ll be able to leave, or simply about just what the hell is becoming of the world.

It’s a tremendous credit to the director, choreographer, lighting designer (Howell Binkley), and dialect coach (Joel Goldes) that these transitions are never anything but crystal clear: No matter how many scenes and personas we swap through, you always know exactly where you are and who’s talking to whom.

Come from Away could also be a Canadian tourism ad, for how much it shores up the country’s reputation for being kind and welcoming. Across language and cultural barriers, the locals open up their homes and businesses to feed and house the stranded, culminating in the show’s best musical number, “Screech In,” when those strangers are officially inducted as Newfoundlanders in a rousing bar celebration led by Gander’s mayor (the ebullient Kevin Carolan).

Marika Aubrey (center) in Come from Away at Civic Theatre

Matthew Murph

While “Screech In” has that familiar building-toward-intermission energy, it instead leads directly into the second-best number (your SkyMiles may vary), “Me and the Sky.” Marika Aubrey is fantastic as the real-life Beverley Bass. Her solo is what the entire movie Captain Marvel was trying to be (sorry not sorry). Taking a nearly three-act journey in itself, it tells her life story of overcoming discrimination to become American Airlines’ first female captain: Your heart will soar with her, then plummet at the line “Suddenly I’m flying Paris to Dallas / across the Atlantic and feeling calm / when suddenly…”—as you realize what rhyme is coming for calm.

Be prepared to cry. The play doesn’t shy away from the horror of that day. But neither does it dwell in it or staple it on for cheap pathos. Rather, it presents an antidote to the horror in the form of small serendipitous joys, and simple compassion from one stranger to another.

Come from Away runs through the weekend at Civic Theatre; tickets are available at broadwaysd.com.

The post San Diego’s Homegrown Hit ‘Come from Away’ Returns from Broadway appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Mikaela Rae Macias and Jennifer Eve Thorn in Mother of the Maid at Moxie Theatre | Photo: Desireé Clarke

Teens are inscrutable creatures to their parents even in the best of times. Imagine how much stranger it would’ve felt to see your daughter ride off to lead an army, the future king in the palm of her hand, hailed as the fulfillment of a prophecy.

Every saint still needed someone to change their diapers. That’s the perspective Mother of the Maid takes on Joan of Arc, who, guided by visions of St. Catherine, influenced her way into Charles VII’s court, led the siege of Orléans in 1429, and was ultimately executed for heresy (spoiler alert) about age 19.

Moxie Theatre’s Joan, Mikaela Rae Macias, has unshakeable self-assurance about her holy mission, heedless of any caution from her family. When she dictates an ultimatum to the Duke of Burgundy, clad in plate armor, watch the other actors’ bafflement tinged with fear. This is the sweet little girl we raised? 

But Joan is still a child, of course, and when her fate is sealed, Macias, a second-year theater student at SDSU, conjures some of the most convincing crying I’ve ever seen—she knows a good cry comes on in stages, even as you’re trying to resist it and keep talking, before tumbling into hyperventilation.

Though she’s the motivating character, Joan is more often absent from the stage, leaving us to digest the dizzying turns of her story through her mother, Isabelle. Moxie’s own executive artistic director, Jennifer Eve Thorn, has for a while been seen only leading talkbacks and asking us to silence our cell phones, but she returns to the stage like no time has passed. Thorn carries a mother’s indomitable will and physicality regardless of whom she’s set against—from Isabelle’s son, Pierre (Zack King), who towers over her and itches for combat; to a lady of the court (Sarah Alida Leclair) who somehow flatters and talks down to her at the same time.

The script, by Emmy Award winner Jane Anderson, demands a lot from Isabelle—perhaps too much. Its core theme is the disconnect between parents and their children; both the pride and the helplessness of watching your beloved become their own person beyond your control, with strange new ideas in their head. This alone could be enough for the play. Every scene between Macias and Thorn resonates in timeless and familiar ways despite the historical setting.

Jennifer Eve Thorn and Mikaela Rae Macias in Mother of the Maid at Moxie Theatre | Photo: Desireé Clarke

Yet Anderson is also trying to say something about the class divide, and that’s where the play feels a little overstuffed. It’s an insightful take on Joan of Arc: The nobility selects one remarkable member of the working class to lionize as a bootstrap success, sends them off to war, and fails to protect them, only to praise their heroism after their preventable death.

But there’s not much room to balance that theme with the mother-daughter relationship on top of all the period exposition. The result is stray historical details that receive no follow-up, clashing with contemporary language like the lady of the court being aware of her “privilege.”

The interstitial music choices seem out of place, too—medieval instrumental covers of System of a Down, Coldplay, Cyndi Lauper, and others whose titles are usually on-the-nose about the content of the preceding scene. They do provide some palate-cleansing levity, but once you notice the anachronism, they become more of a name-that-tune guessing game.

But these are minor complaints. On the whole, Mother of the Maid is a moving, realistic portrait of an average family swept up by the forces of history. Director Desireé Clarke deftly maneuvers around the wordy script, giving everyone the right beats to stop, breathe, and react. For me, the play’s most powerful moment is when Isabelle, unable to visit Joan, tries to compose a letter and just can’t form the words. Thorn’s speechlessness is heartbreaking. So too is the final monologue from Joan’s father, Jacques (Dave Rivas)—whose former protective gruffness dissolves into naked grief.

The human stories here are as fine as anything Moxie has produced, and well worth the script’s occasional excesses.

Mother of the Maid runs through May 22. Tickets are available at moxietheatre.com.

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Not that there’s anything wrong with farce. But Dance Nation has a lot more on its mind than a simple satire of the hypercompetitive world of Dance Moms, which should be evident from the recognition it’s received: It won the Relentless Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize after debuting at Playwright Horizons in 2018, and promptly became a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It’s heading to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre after this, its West Coast debut.

You realize soon after that first shock that this is one of those rare empathetic, character-driven stories that are actually enhanced by their glimpses through the looking glass. Each of these six girls (and one boy) are motivated by real coming-of-age concerns like the pressure to succeed, the fear of being excluded, or even just the difficulty of giving oneself an orgasm; and each one has a voice that’s very well differentiated from the others, which (in the writing world at least) is an underrated achievement.

Where a less confident script might explicitly announce its wilder segments as dream sequences or inner monologue, Dance Nation paints a more vivid picture of adolescence by blurring the lines of reality. As much as the realistic narrative hits the authentic mannerisms and conversation style of high-achieving preteens, the more stylized detours capture the feeling of unlimited potential that drives them. Could I get into some in-depth analysis of the thematic reasons why the dancers transform into vampires, their ballet into a rave? Sure. But why waste words on justifying the form when the feeling speaks louder?

There is a conventional plot, following the troupe’s preparation for the “Boogie Down Grand Prix” in Tampa Bay—but it unfolds by way of vignettes, incidental conversations, character observation through dance, and other slice-of-life episodes. I don’t know about playwright Clare Barron’s background, but the flavor of these are too deliciously specific not to have some origin in memoir. Dance Teacher Pat (Daren Scott, whom I’m happy to see onstage after seeing his photography for theater companies all over town) is always “Dance Teacher Pat,” never “Pat,” never “Mr.”; and his methods are progressively bizarre, hilarious, threatening, and inspiring.

Everyone in the cast gets their turn to shine, and if not for lack of space I would go on about each of them. I’ve seen Sandra Ruiz and Joy Yvonne Jones in previous Moxie productions (and just had the privilege of interviewing the latter) and both of them have put a lot of thought into embodying young characters who have just as complex an interior life as any adult.

Dance Nation Moxie Theatre review

Andrea Agosto in Dance Nation at Moxie Theatre | Photo by Daren Scott

Sarah Karpicus Violet plays a few different moms, now commanding, now cuddly. Eddie Yaroch’s character has less dialogue than others, but it’s sweet to see representation for boys who are quiet but sincere and completely unconcerned with machismo. Wendy Maples is a star burdened by the expectations that accompany teacher favoritism; Farah Dinga plays a new student hoping to join the in-group; and Li-Anne Rowswell’s big moment is such a touching tribute to the power of magical thinking that I wanted to gush to the playwright, “I can’t believe someone else felt this way as a kid, too—and I’m so happy that you’ve put it into words.”

Last but not least, director Jennifer Eve Thorn must have seen Andrea Agosto in Diversionary Theatre’s Bull in a China Shop—for me, her monologue was the highlight of that play—because Agosto gets the pièce de résistance here, too, delivering a knives-out, flag-planting feminist manifesto where every syllable and gesture are fine-tuned for maximum impact. (What I’m saying is, the Craig Noel Awards should have a category for best monologue.)

To be honest, my only complaint about this show was that it ended so abruptly. Ninety percent of the plays I see, I’m ready for things to wrap up halfway through the second act, but I would’ve enjoyed another half hour with these bright, dynamic characters, seeing just how big their appetite for the world could get.

Dance Nation, directed by Jennifer Eve Thorn

at Moxie Theatre through September 15

Tickets at moxietheatre.com

Moxie’s New Season Is Off to a Smashing Start with ‘Dance Nation’

Farah Dinga, Li-Anne Rowswell, Sandra Ruiz, Eddie Yaroch, Andrea Agosto, and Wendy Maples in Dance Nation at Moxie Theatre | Photo by Daren Scott

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