REVIEW: COME FROM AWAY Opens At The Theatre Royal For An Encore Sydney Season
COME FROM AWAY
Saturday 5th November 2022, 8pm, Theatre Royal Sydney (Preview)
(BroadwayWorld Sydney's Senior Editor Jade Kops also reviewed the 2019 Melbourne season, June 2021 Sydney Opening Night, and October 2021 Post Sydney Lockdown reopening)
Sydney is treated to an encore season of Irene Sankoff and David Hein's (Book, Music and Lyrics) multi award winning musical COME FROM AWAY as the Australian production opens as the Theatre Royal. Ensuring Sydneysiders are given ample opportunity to experience this heart-warming story of the best of humanity given the 2021 season at the Capitol Theatre was subjected to pandemic induced capacity restrictions, it is a delight to get the opportunity to see this work again and review to cast changes since the last Sydney season.
For this season, 3 performers from the Canadian production and Australian Natalie O'Donnell join the company. Sarah Nairne takes on the role of worried mother Hannah, Kyle Brown takes on New Yorker Bob, and David Silvestri takes on Mayor of Gander, Claude while O'Donnell joins the company as Texan traveller Diane. The quartet fit seamlessly into the existing ensemble while also adding their own subtle signatures to the roles. Nairne presents Hannah with a 'lighter' touch adding a greater vulnerability to the mother desperate to know if her son is safe. Brown has a brilliant comic timing as the cautious New Yorker, ensuring the humour and the sentiment of Bob's recollections of being welcomed into the mayor's home are fully felt. Silvestri lends Mayor Claude and others a greater comic physicality ensuring the visual gags land perfectly. O'Donnell expresses Diane with a increased degree of 'innocence' as the woman that drops her guard and falls for the awkward Englishman.
As the company have 'inhabited' these roles for a while, Zoe Gertz, Douglas Hansell, and Emma Powell having been with the company since the original Melbourne season, the performers have settled nicely into the characters and gently 'play' with the roles, ensuring the weight of the words land clearly and comic moments are fully felt. The Newfoundland accents are tempered with just the right adjustment to tempo to ensure that they can be understood to the Australian ear. The performers know just how the humour of the work should land and adjust the pace of the work ever so slightly to allow for the laughs.
Having seen the work presented in the smaller theatres of the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne and the Schoenfeld Theatre in New York, the work sits nicely in the more intimate space of the Theatre Royal compared to its previous Sydney engagement at the larger Capitol Theatre so for those that have previously attended the Capitol Theatre season, it is well worth experienced the work in the different venue.
The work remains a captivating and uplifting piece of theatre. For those that have yet to be welcomed to 'The Rock', make sure you don't miss out on this season. For those that have previously experienced COME FROM AWAY, see it again. There is so much detail in the work that even on the 5th time seeing the live performance, new elements are spotted.
Come From Away - The remarkable true story of the small town that welcomed the world.
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