{"id":5296,"date":"2019-03-10T22:44:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T05:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5296"},"modified":"2019-03-11T09:42:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:42:46","slug":"because-we-come-from-everywhere-vancouver-03-10-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5296","title":{"rendered":"Because We Come From Everywhere… – Vancouver – [03\/10\/2019]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’m an Islander, I am an Islander
\nWelcome to the Rock!<\/em><\/p>\n

[…]<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to the fog
\nWelcome to the trees
\nTo the ocean and the sky
\nAnd whatever’s in between
\nTo the one’s who’ve left
\nYou’re never truly gone..<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a strong positive reaction to nearly every live show I see. In all my years in and out of theatre there has only been one that was an exception. I fall in love with each and every one of them.<\/p>\n

But every so often\u2026one comes along that is\u2026special<\/em>. That is something even beyond special, that pulls something out of me that I didn\u2019t even know I had in me to begin with.<\/p>\n

Come From Away<\/em>, is one of those on that very very short list.<\/p>\n

This show\u2026.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even know if I have words to say what this show feels like. I don\u2019t know if I can pin it down to a moment, if I can find the right pieces to put together to tell you what it feels like. The world needs<\/em> this show. Needs stories like this. Needs them desperately. This show doesn\u2019t just have a catchy soundtrack and some very witty dialogue, this show doesn\u2019t just give a little bit of escapism\u2026this show\u2026gives something far more precious. It gives hope. Hope that in the midst of everything terrible<\/em> that is happening in your life, in everyone\u2019s life, in the world<\/em>, there is beauty, there is kindess\u2026because things like this happen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Bear with me, this may take a little while\u2026<\/p>\n

When I was just in grade school, my Mum and I went on a school skiiing trip, and this was back way before cell phones, when buses had those tiny tv screens in the ceilings. So a bunch of tired kids were treated to a screening of Speed<\/em> on a bus in the middle of the night going down the highway. I remember how huge<\/em> that screen felt in those circumstances, how close I felt to the actors, how incredibly shocked<\/em> I was when the movie ended and I was suddenly back in the bus looking at this little tiny screen.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the same thing that happened ot me tonight.<\/p>\n

I had dress circle seats. Which are some of the best seats in the house for sightline, but have the downside of being far away from the stage, and I hadn\u2019t brought my mini-binoculars, so I had a moment of going \u201coh dear, this could be interesting\u201d. And then it didn\u2019t matter, because just like that television screen long ago, the stage suddenly expanded and rolled close, and it felt as if I was sitting the front row. It takes a lot of energy to do that on multiple levels.<\/p>\n

At first the audience applauded with every song, and then about fifteen minutes in, there were no applause, there was no whispering, the whole theatre was simply rapt<\/em>. And when there were pauses it was usually for laughter (\u201cfor the love of god, stop bringing toilet paper to the lion\u2019s club!!!\u201d)\u2026or that still silence that means everyone in that theatre is remembering exactly where they were when this story happened. Because all of us remember it. All of us. Every one.<\/p>\n

I take just one second for myself and I’m sitting in my car
\nI’m in the library
\nI’m in the staff room
\nAnd I turn on the radio…
\nYou are here, at the start of the moment
\nOn the edge of the world, where the river meets the sea
\nHere on the edge of the Atlantic
\nOn an island in between there and here<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cast of twelve people. And the entire set other than the backdrop? Is 12 chairs. That\u2019s it. Twelve people, twelve chairs. And that alone is amazing. Those twelve people managed to make up a cast of 7000 people and dozens of locals (oh, and 19 animals), and those twelve chairs weren\u2019t chairs \u2013 they were planes, school buses, and everything in between. As an actress it was one of the most amazing performances I have ever witnessed\u2026and as a person\u2026it was the most beautiful story I\u2019ve ever experienced.<\/p>\n

I’ve got one plane who’s asking for priority debark…turns out they were on their way to Orlando…with 35 Wish kids heading to Disneyworld<\/em><\/p>\n

I think it was then that the few people in the audience that weren’t crying, suddenly were. And as it turns out? Those ‘wish kids’?<\/p>\n

Well, we had to tell them that they weren’t going to Disney after all, but as it turns out? They didn’t care! They were having hayrides, and riding horses, and if they’d gotten to Florida? They well…it turns out they would have had a week of rain.<\/em><\/p>\n

Canada is not perfect, far from it, we have screwed up just as much as anybody else\u2026but the fact that the events of this story actually happened in my country make me heart-burstingly proud.<\/p>\n

There are some moments that stand out; the biggest one , other than the drum beat of the opening number, is the solo of Me & The Sky<\/em>, which was both amazing and wrenching to watch. But the one that really stands out is the one I often skip over when I\u2019m listening to the CD\u2026about half way through the show, there\u2019s a prayer. And all the characters are on stage, and you see those that are Jewish finally speaking (\u201cI was always told never to tell people I was jewish, but after what\u2019s happened? After knowing that any one of us could have died on Tuesday? It just doesn\u2019t seem important anymore\u201d) and the muslims laying out their prayer mats, and all these different cultures and religions all thrown together in this tiny little church\u2026and it just hits you just how\u2026all the same we all are. We are all fragile and frightened, we are all looking for a light in the darkness. That\u2019s what holds us together\u2026and too often we forget that.<\/p>\n

The show is an hour and a half long\u2026and there\u2019s no intermission. And you do not notice<\/em>. It feels like twenty minutes. I know the soundtrack inside out, so I knew when it was coming to the finale, and found myself htinking \u201cno! No I don\u2019t want to leave!\u201d.<\/p>\n

And after five days? We just rolled the Zamboni over the ice…and we played hockey…<\/em><\/p>\n

When the last plane left, I sat down, and I cried…I hadn’t let myself cry the whole time…<\/em><\/p>\n

When the show concluded, it did so with a finale that brought the entire Queen Elizabeth theatre roaring to its feet, crying cheering, and screeching as though we had just done shots in a Newfoundland Legion bar.<\/p>\n

The lights shut off with a flash and people were still cheering, and then suddenly the stage lights came back on, and the band stepped forward (because the band is on stage for the whole show) and rolled into the exit music, which brought everyone to tears again\u2026and I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not the only one who\u2019s hands still sting.<\/p>\n

Theatre is a transient art, performers bring heartbursting joy to the world and then that\u2019s it, the show\u2019s over. Even if you film it, you could never capture what that theatre felt like. But some shows, just some\u2026are so powerful that they leave an indelible mark on the souls of the people who are lucky enough to witness it.<\/p>\n

It will be a long long while before I can afford to do anything big and fancy\u2026there may not be another set of tickets in my future for a little while\u2026but this? I will never ever<\/em> regret seeing this\u2026.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m an Islander, I am an Islander Welcome to the Rock! […] Welcome to the fog Welcome to the trees To the ocean and the sky And whatever’s in between To the one’s who’ve left You’re never truly gone.. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-vacation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1nq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5296"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5301,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296\/revisions\/5301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}