I had the privilege of seeing the first dress rehearsal on Thursday night, as the production offered a limited number of tickets to 9/11 family members who wanted to see the production outside of a regular, paying audience. I was extremely grateful for this generous move- particularly as from a financial standpoint, I imagine most productions would want to pull people with such personal ties to the material in as paying customers.
From a personal standpoint, I'm truly grateful that I went. For all the good things I heard about the show out of town, I wasn't sure I was going to wind up buying a ticket- sometimes it is hard to spend money on something you know will leave you a weeping mess. So having the opportunity to see the show in a setting where I wouldn't feel self conscious about my potential reaction to it was a true gift. And I loved it. In spite of the inherently heavy subject matter, it didn't feel at all like the show was hitting you over the head saying "This is a serious subject!", nor did it feel like it was exploiting the sensitivity of the source material (which is how some artistic pieces spawned from 9/11 have come across to me). Unsurprisingly, I was teary through much of the show, and given the number of FDNY folks in the audience, it was clear that the audience was responding strongly to the story of Hannah, the woman whose firefighter son was killed in the attacks. The experiences of the Muslim passenger, Ali (I think?), seemed such a relevant story to highlight in our current society, and I personally found the number that wove together the prayers of different religious groups to be particularly powerful as well. But there were some wonderfully light and funny moments as well, and I found the entire piece to be a story told with great dignity.
From the viewpoint of a frequent theatre-goer, the show was a delight. In spite of the director cautioning us that new script pages had been added that afternoon, the show seemed to move along seamlessly. The only slight snafu was that Jenn Colella's mic briefly cut at out two different points, but apart from that, they seemed more than ready for New York audiences. Sadly, I can't comment too much on specific cast members or songs as they did not yet have Playbills ready, but I can say that the cast as a whole was excellent. It is always a treat to see an ensemble piece with a group that works together as seamlessly as this one. I've been a fan of Jenn Colella for a while now, and she definitely owns her solo number as Beverly Bass (which I'm going to take an educated guess is called Me and the Sky). I loved the musical style (I'm a huge fan of anything with a Gaelic musical influence), I'm still humming several of the songs, and I look forward to purchasing the cast recording as soon as it becomes available. I wish I could offer you guys more specifics, but I'm afraid that the show required so much emotional processing on my part that some of the details blurred together for me by the next morning. That being said, having seen the show once and being allowed to have my "crying jag", I'm actually very much looking forward to returning to the show as a paying customer to appreciate it for the lovely piece of theatre that it is!
Updated On: 2/18/17 at 02:34 PM
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