Review: 'The Wind Coming Over The Sea' is the Blyth Festival's best original in years
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
In The Wind Coming Over The Sea, Emma Donoghue has crafted - in this reviewer’s humble opinion - the best original offering at the Blyth Festival since 2017’s The Pigeon King. She’s also written something that only an Irish author could write.
It is often said of the Irish - and I say this as a Loughlin - that they have a wickedly dark sense of humour and that they can laugh about anything, including themselves, because they’ve endured such hardship in their history. It is to that end that Donoghue - a celebrated author, playwright and screenwriter - has created a show that can be heartbreakingly sad and tragic in one minute and uproariously funny in the next. It has a laugh at some Irish stereotypes, while not being offensive about them as it tells the mostly true story of a not-particularly-special Irish family navigating its way from the famine-ravished island to the hope and promise offered by Canada in the mid-1800s.
I say not particularly special in that Henry and Jane Johnson, the couple at the centre of the story, were real people who exchanged letters. Henry went ahead to Canada to find a better life and Jane followed shortly thereafter with their children in tow. Donoghue has crafted the story from real letters, researched others from the era to fill in the blanks and has further filled in the blanks with the imagination and credentials of the author that she is. The result, of course, is a masterpiece of the Blyth Festival theatre, but, in the end, it’s one story of many as immigrants from that part of the world made their way to Canada in droves during that time; a story that has echoed through time as the years have gone on.
Donoghue is helped, of course, by her director, Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt, and a stellar cast and tremendous set, sound and lighting design; something I don’t always discuss in my reviews, but the work on this show is particularly impressive.
Leading the charge are Landon Doak as Henry and Shelayna Christante as Jane, the young-and-in-love couple living in Ireland and seeking a better life not just for themselves, but for their growing family; this, at a time when travelling across the Atlantic Ocean took weeks and those aboard these ships risked illness, danger and even death to reach their destination.
Doak and Christante are at once excellent in these demanding leading roles. Doak, particularly, is truly impressive and they have surely earned the confidence the Festival has shown in them, handing over this role and the co-leading role of Yock in next week’s Quiet in the Land.
Supporting the two leads are the always-excellent Michelle Fisk and Geoffrey Armour, along with Masae Day and George Meanwell, who nail their dramatic assignments, while doing much of the heavy lifting in this very musical affair with Day on violin and Meanwell in his usual jack-of-all-trades musical role, playing most of the instruments you knew existed and others that you didn’t.
The story at the core of The Wind Coming Over The Sea is simple, in a way, as a family seeks to rise above its circumstances and improve its lot in life. Henry and Jane want to earn a living and build a foundation upon which an easier life than theirs can be created for their children. In Ireland, in the mid-1800s, it was the devastation of the potato famine, but in more recent years, it’s been war or authoritarian regimes that have driven families to the (somewhat) more stable environs of North America. They all want the same things and, if they can’t get them where they happened to be born, sometimes a move is the only way forward. As former President Barack Obama said to the late, great Anthony Bourdain over a meal in Vietnam when asked about the knowledge that can come from travel, “It confirms the basic truth that people everywhere are pretty much the same; with the same hopes and dreams....”
Donoghue - an Irish immigrant herself now living in London, Ontario, first making the trip in the late 1990s - clearly has great care and empathy for the characters whose stories she’s telling. Even as faults are revealed and grim fates are met, there is a love between her and the people being portrayed on stage that can be felt by those in the audience.
Garratt’s direction is equally caring, balancing the fun, the harrowing and the heartbreaking, all against a backdrop that never physically changes - another tribute to the designers of the show whose work is brilliant in its simplicity.
And, of course, there’s the music. Traditional Irish songs, some more well-known than others, are peppered throughout the show at moments both joyous and sad. While the performers themselves are as talented as the show demands, it’s no surprise to discover that they are being guided by the steady hand of Anne Lederman whose musical reputation is beyond reproach when it comes to her Blyth Festival work.
The year-round team at the Blyth Festival couldn’t believe its luck in being part of Emma Donoghue’s world when the decision to produce this play was reached. Audiences are sure to feel the same way.
The Wind Coming Over The Sea is on the Memorial Hall stage until Tuesday, Aug. 12.