Something Completely Different: “Come From Away”
Most of the shows that I enjoy or review have very traditional costume designs. Come From Away is a major exception to that, and I confess, I wasn’t quite sure how to review the costumes for this musical until I sat down and started writing. These are not traditional costumes by any stretch of the imagination; what costume designer and Tony-nominee Toni-Leslie James has done here is take her inspiration from mundane, run-of-the-mill clothing in order to fit the theme of the musical. But lest that come off as a crack, let me be clear: there is nothing mundane about these costumes, or the work that they have to do.
A little background first: Come From Away is an ensemble musical set in Gander, Newfoundland in the hours and days immediately following the September 11th terror attacks. When the United States closed its airspace, thirty-eight planes were forced to make an emergency landing at the Gander airport, and suddenly a town of 9,000 had to double in size to take care of the passengers. The musical follows a handful of stories that are emblematic of the drama and human moments that accompanied these events. What is different is that the musical requires each of the actors to play as many as a dozen roles per evening, sometimes needing to change roles in the middle of a song, let alone a scene. And to accomplish that? Well, the only way to make it happen is through a quick costume change.
That’s where the genius of Ms James’ designs comes into play. Taking her cue from the everyday fashions of the early 2000s, she had to come up with a way to show that characters were different. But the costumes needed to be light and able to be changed quickly, with a single garment change in some cases. I’ll take a look at a few of the designs now, with thanks once again to Playbill for making its pictures available online:
I chose this still to illustrate what I was talking about by “mundane” clothing. Ms James has used street clothes here to outfit the characters because, frankly, most of the characters don’t have the chance to change clothes over the course of the week that they’re stranded in Newfoundland. What is interesting, however, is that Ms. James chose to work with a very muted color palette. I say that’s interesting because it helps to keep the visuals of the production somewhat somber; even with the showstopping numbers, the muted visuals remind us that what lurks beneath the surface of the musical is that it exists because of a tragedy.
But even with that, there’s some irony that Ms James engages in. One character, Hannah O’Rourke (played by Q.Smith), is the mother of a firefighter battling the blazes at the World Trade Center and spends much of the musical in a state of worry and fear regarding his fate. But despite having the most tragic role of the performance, Ms James puts Hannah in the single brightest costume of the musical, with a bright purple (almost a deep lavender) sweater. There’s a subtle commentary here: this woman is experiencing profound tragedy while clothed in a joyous color–because tragedy doesn’t discriminate and the human condition doesn’t always enable a person to prepare for terrible events. She was wearing something bright on her flight home…and that’s just how it is. Have a look at the color in this scene where she discusses her fear with Gander native/teacher Beulah (Astrid van Wieran; photo courtesy of Ford’s Theatre, home of the pre-Broadway production):
It’s still a somewhat muted color, but it’s clearly the brightest main garment in the musical. It’s an inspired choice by Ms. James, and it really stuck with me throughout the musical.
But there are some more fantastic choices made by the costumer here. I want to take a showstopping number to illustrate one of those single-garment-changes-the-characters moments I referred to above. Jenn Collela portrays any number of characters in the musical, for which she was Tony-nominated, and one of those is Capt. Beverley Bass; Capt. Bass is a real person who was indeed stranded in Gander during the events of the musical as a pilot for American Airlines. She was, in fact, the first female captain in American history and later was the first to lead an all-women flight crew. During the number “Me and the Sky,” Capt. Bass sings about her fight to become a pilot, overcoming sexism and skepticism to make it into the captain’s chair. Her all-women flight crew is mentioned, and the majority of the women members of the cast don flight caps to portray them and sing backup for their Captain:
The actresses still have the fundamental same costumes as they have throughout much of the musical (with the exception of Ms Colella, who has donned a blazer), but the addition of the flight caps makes clear their changed roles. It may seem almost “too” simple, but I really think that it works. This is democratic theatre in action: the focus is on the music and the characters rather than the costumes–by intentional decision of the costume designer. Come From Away isn’t intended to be showy and flashy, but it is intended to make sure the viewer understands who is who and what is going on.
Another example of the subtle change that Ms James makes in the characters through her costume and wardrobe choices is in how she shifts from a townsperson to a plane person (as the musical calls the stranded passengers). Brenda is one of the Newfoundlanders who gives up their time and home in order to help care for the town of Gander’s guests. Diane is a businesswoman traveling back to Texas from Paris. The two are played by the same actress in the musical (Sharon Wheatley), and the only difference between the two is a simple hair tie and the addition of an Armani blazer.
The first picture is Ms Wheatley in her role as Brenda, the second as Diane, the passenger. A quick change in hairstyle and the addition of the muted beige blazer means the difference between someone who was just dressed for their daily life as opposed to someone still sporting the garb from their last business meeting. That Ms James sourced the blazer from Armani is, I think, important; it’s a fashion house, and a quick google tells me that there wasn’t a retail outlet selling it in Newfoundland (let alone Gander itself) in 2001. Subtle as it is, Diane is costumed in a way that Brenda literally could not be. That’s an accomplishment that the audience should reflect on when they consider the costumes that have been put up here.
One more set of costume changes is important to illustrate why I think Ms James did such a fantastic job here:
Geno Carr portrays a series of characters in this musical, with the guise on the left being that of Oz Fudge, a Gander police officer (who, in real life, wears glasses exactly like those on Carr, according to Ms James), and that on the right being something…completely different. The matador uniform appears once in a fantasy sequence that one of Jenn Colella’s subsidiary characters (Annette) has regarding Mr. Michaels, the Spanish teacher. Even with a fantasy sequence, Ms James keeps the outfit muted, the only color coming in the form of some gold fringe and a few red and gold sequins. But despite the simple design and styling, it’s clear what it is supposed to be–and the muting effect reinforces that in times of tragedy, even the ridiculous can feel a bit otherworldly and sombre.
In some ways, I feel like using costumes that are drawn from what small-town people would have in their closets or what people would have on their backs during a plane ride is more challenging than working from scratch. Ms James had to make sure that her costumes were timeless (no pop culture references from today!) and non-anachronistic, and could be plausibly inserted in the early 2000s setting. She had to ensure that the costumes were relatable–”Hey, I could wear something like that” is the key theme here!–without being too common. And she had to make sure that they didn’t detract from the overall message of the musical: that during adverse moments, humanity tends to come out, even if there is pain and suffering all around us.
Come From Away is a triumphant musical that, in the words of Claude (Joel Hatch), the Mayor of Gander, in the concluding number of the production, “honor[s] what was lost, but…also commemorate[s] what we found.” The costumes do a great job of reminding us of both of those things: they honor what was lost through their sobriety, and what was found through their universality and relatability.
