Anna, an orphan in 15th-century 

Constantinople; 
Omeir, 
a 
poor 

woodcutter’s son, his cleft palate 
proof of a demon’s presence; Zeno, 
an old man in modern-day Lakeport, 
Idaho; 
Seymour, 
an 
autistic 

Generation-Z teenager raised in 
that same town; Konstance, a girl 
aboard a spaceship in some distant 
future with only a tangle of conscious 
wires to keep her company; Aethon, 
a fictional man whose story connects 
everyone else through time and 
space. These are the characters 
around which Anthony Doerr’s 
“Cloud Cuckoo Land” revolves.

“Cloud Cuckoo Land” is a deeply 

ambitious book. Six stories spread 
across four ages, three nations and 
two worlds. It is part contemporary, 
part historical, part science fiction, 
part myth. For most authors, 
attempting a feat like this would 
result in a jumbled mess of plot lines 
and a desperate need to simplify.

But Anthony Doerr is not most 

authors. The Pulitzer Prize winner 
for “All the Light We Cannot See” has 
a truly extraordinary ability to weave 
together different lives, deftly pulling 
the strings to cause them to crash 
into one another before spiraling 
away again. 

In chapters of only a few pages, full 

of prose that beautifully contrasts the 
stark humanness in each scene, Doerr 
manages to explore six multifaceted 
individuals — their ambitions, their 
families, their struggles and their 
fears — without losing sight of the 
common thread around which all 
of their lives pivot: a story from a 
different time, one that promises 
more than what their lives have given 
them. They each come to find solace 
in the fable of Aethon, the “dimwit” 
sheepherder who longed to become a 
bird so he could fly to Cloud Cuckoo 
Land, a magical city in the sky.

For a story so grand in scope, 

the book still feels intimate and 
personal. It takes a great gift to make 
an audience sympathize with every 
character — to worry for them, care 
for them and forgive them — and it’s 
a gift Doerr thankfully possesses. 
There is no character whose chapters 
I had to slog through (a common 
occurrence in multi-narrative books), 
none that I grew disinterested in or 
lost my patience with.

Each time the narrative shifted 

back to a character who hadn’t been 
heard from in a while, it felt like 
catching a new episode of a well-liked 
TV show: short, sweet, and then you 
change the channel and forget about 
it until next week. Though there 
were moments when it was difficult 
to switch focus from one character’s 
narrative to another, and I was 
tempted to skip ahead so I could 
continue one story, I’m glad I didn’t. 
Doerr knows what he’s doing. Trust 
the process.

In a characteristic fashion, Doerr 

centralizes the conflict between 
sets of characters. There’s Seymour, 
who attempts to bomb a library in 
which Zeno is directing a children’s 
play, and then there’s Omeir, who’s 
drafted to help bring down the city 
walls behind which Anna lives. 
Sworn enemies, who are bound to 
one another by pain instead of love, 
can nonetheless find the humanity in 
each other.

Despite the complexity — Greek 

mythology, wars fought half a 
millennia apart and some spaceships 
thrown in for good measure — this is 
fundamentally a story of seeing one 
another and acknowledging whatever 
it is that makes us so intrinsically 
similar across all barriers.

We meet Konstance as she’s 

bent over the scraps of paper she 
salvages from her food bags, stitching 
together the history of humanity in 
the limited hours of light she’s given 
each day; the makeshift pen and ink 
with which she writes is a lifeline to 
a world outside her sterile room. A 
millennium before, Anna learns in 
secret how to read, sneaking candles 
into the closet-sized room she shares 
with her sister so she can pore over 
the Odyssey every night, desperate 
for an escape from her miserably 
boring life. In another time, Zeno 
fights for democracy in Korea while 
Omeir fights for his family’s honor 
and his kingdom in Constantinople. 
Each is an entirely distinct path that 
somehow mirrors all the others. 
Each person is searching for Cloud 
Cuckoo Land.

Upon closing the book, it’s 

impossible not to wonder how those 
who come next will perceive us. 
Which of our stories will last, which 
will vanish and which will only ever 
be remembered by an unlikely few, 
our words still forming invisible 
bonds between strangers long after 
we’re gone?

This review is a companion piece to Katrina 

Stebbins’s “Stage meets screen in ‘Come From 
Away,’ a deeply empathetic retelling of lesser-
known stories of 9/11.”

There’s something special about the space 

that theaters inhabit, especially when they’re 
empty. The ghost light filters throughout 
the empty orchestra and mezzanine, the 
world-weary seats filled with the specters of 
past guests, people who once filled them in 
anticipation of being transported elsewhere 
for the next two hours. The stage stands bare, 
the curtains framing the proscenium like 
velvet bangs, the interior an empty picture 
full of potential: The potential for stage crews 
to push massive, scene-stealing set pieces out 
of the wings, the potential for the actors to 
egress from backstage into the world they 
exist in for a few hours a day, the potential to 
be someone else and the potential to entertain, 
inform and change the lives of those viewing 
the experience.

The air singes with electric possibilities, 

the entire theater impatient for actors to once 
again fill the stages and audiences to fill the 
seats. There is a magic in theater that has 
been desperately missing from our lives since 
Broadway and theaters nationwide closed 
down due to the pandemic; the show simply 
could not continue to go on when we most 
needed it. 

I spent all four years in high school inside the 

walls of our theater. I had class there daily with 
people who became family, and I probably spent 
more time with them than at my actual house 
with my actual family. Coming to the University 
of Michigan, I was quick to get familiar with 
the various student theater groups, because, 
although I am now a film major, I could never 
let go of the stage entirely.

Whenever I was home in New Jersey 

for the holidays, I tried to make at least one 
pilgrimage to Manhattan to see whatever 
show I could get tickets for. I was devastated 
when theaters closed for the pandemic, and I 
have been anxiously awaiting the day I will be 
able to sit down for a live show again. Whether 
it be straight plays, Shakespeare or musicals, 
theater has always been the constant in my life, 
the binding rock through fits of depression, 
anxiety, heartbreak and whatever other extra 
hardships life threw my way. I met some of my 

best friends through acting and cannot even 
begin to count the number of shows that have 
had a profound impact on my life.

Not having theater around in its traditional 

form for over a year hurt. So when I saw that 
“Come From Away” was finally available on 
Apple TV+, I clicked play immediately. 

“Come From Away” is the story of the 

townsfolk of Gander, Newfoundland, and 
how they came together in the aftermath of 
9/11 — when airspace was closed over America 
— to house up to 7,000 diverted travelers who 
could not get home. The show has long been a 
personal favorite of mine; the music is folksy 
and engaging, the lyrics are often profound 
and help a slim, well-paced book tell the story 
of the hundreds of real-life people portrayed 
by 12 actors.

The simple wooden set works in tandem 

beautifully with the light design, giving a 
seemingly empty space incredible depth 
and versatility. In person, everything comes 
together under the direction of Christopher 
Ashley (“The Rocky Horror Show”), in both 
the theatrical and filmed production, to 
form a riveting and emotionally charged 
one-act show. Thankfully, Ashley keeps 
his keen directorial eye and transfers the 
in-person experience seamlessly into the 
pro-shot.

Rather than being a film adaptation of 

a show, a pro-shot is quite literally a filmed 
version of a stage production. The camera 
movements and edits are there to help 

enhance the experience, often helping to 
focus the massive framing and blocking of live 
shows for smaller screens.

Pro-shots are far from a new concept — they 

have existed within the Broadway community 
for years — but it was only recently that people 
woke up to the larger general demand for them 
and began to view them as a possible solution 
to the class problems plaguing theater. When a 
ticket costs upwards of $300 dollars for a single 
seat, maybe less if you’d settle for one in the 
nosebleeds, it becomes hard for everyone who 
isn’t from an upper-middle-class family to see 
shows. Productions as powerful and essential 
as “Come From Away” have a greater impact 
when more people have access to them; thus, it 
is a great boon for everyone that the pro-shot is 
available for wider consumption. 

Part of the reason that “Come From Away” 

is vital viewing for everyone is because it is 
not your typical 9/11 fare. The show is never 
saturated with American exceptionalism, 
calls to arms for our troops or the war that 
ensued after the attack; rather, it focuses 
on how the death and destruction affected 
everyone around the world. A majority of the 
characters in the show are not even American 
citizens, and those who are usually don’t let 
that define them.

Married writing duo Irene Sankoff and 

David Hein focus the piece on empathy and 
compassion, on a community coming together 
to help complete strangers during a time of 
pure fear and tragedy. We follow all these 

Newfoundlanders, their kettles always on and 
their beds always set for visitors because they 
put helping others ahead of their own daily 
lives and routines.

***
Gander has an interesting history as 

a refugee-hub: As Newfoundland’s only 
international airport, and a place where flights 
from all over often stop to refuel, flights during 
the Cold War Era frequently emptied, only 
leaving the flight crew as everyone else asked 
for political asylum. Other events throughout 
history, such as Y2K, have unknowingly acted 
to prepare Gander’s citizens and its airport for 
the events that unfolded on Sept. 11.

Since then, Gander has not experienced a 

refugee event of similar scale, but I imagine 
that doesn’t change the fact that the townsfolk 
are always ready and waiting to welcome more 
“come from aways,” should the opportunity 
ever present itself. It makes one sit and think: 
“Would we do that?” While individual 
answers may vary, I believe that, after 
watching America over the past two years of 
the pandemic, the answer is no, we would not.

That’s the true power of “Come From 

Away” and why its release, not only in time for 
the 20th anniversary of 9/11 but also during 
a pandemic, is so powerful. The show lives 
and breathes friendliness and empathy, but 
is not afraid to delve into the darker parts of 
the rebuilding process, including the rampant 
Islamophobia and trauma that we as a nation 
still struggle with today.

And that’s the key word here: trauma.
We have all been subjected to a year and 

a half of unmitigated trauma at the hands of 
COVID-19. Our first responders have worked 
tirelessly since the beginning of 2020 and are 
far beyond running on fumes as emergency 
rooms continue to fill and overflow. It is so 
ridiculously easy to look at the news — to 
look at all the states banning mask mandates 
and all the people ignoring rules or falsifying 
vaccine cards — and be overwhelmed by the 
selfishness.

Just like in the aftermath of 9/11, many 

people quickly moved back from “us” to 
“me,” but that doesn’t minimize the good that 
people are still doing. Acts of pure compassion 
and goodness still resonate like beacons of 
radiant warmth and remind us that for all 
the bad, there will always be good to balance 
it out. “Come From Away” floats above it 
all as a lifeboat of affection and community, 
highlighting the stories of those who helped 

during the unimaginable. 

***
The best theater sits you down in that 

slightly uncomfortable velvet chair, whose 
armrests dig into your arms just a little, 
challenges 
everything 
you 
know 
and 

reaffirms your humanity. It may not have 
been live, but simply seeing people back on 
stage, performing in a room full of vaccinated 
and masked patrons, made me cry. Some 
deep unknown sadness voiced itself as the 
Newfoundlanders went through their own 
“Blankets and Bedding” for the sake of the 
plane people, and I cried. 

I cried for theater and how much I missed 

it. I cried for the majesty of seeing live 
performances again, of imagining myself one 
day soon in the audience supporting an art 
form I love and desperately miss. I cried for the 
beautiful story and the beautiful book and the 
beautiful songs and the beautiful actors finally 
getting to do what they love once again.

I cried for the terrors that I know everyone 

went through on and because of 9/11, when I 
was barely even two, and my family had just 
moved back to the United States. I cried for 
the terrors and atrocities and traumas that we 
are going through now, the seemingly never-
ending variants always looming overhead, 
blocking the exit. I cried because deep down, I 
know we will get through this. Someday.

But so many people have been and will 

be lost and the world will feel emptier and 
irrevocably different until it is all we know as 
normal.

I cried because this pandemic will always 

be a part of our lives, a foundational piece in 
the puzzle of who we are decades from now 
when it seems like a funny memory but hurts 
like an open wound.

I cried because it will be only then, years 

and years from now when hundreds of 
thousands more tragedies have occurred, that 
we will finally be able to sit down and fully 
accept everything that happened because it is 
too distant to change.

I cried because in the face of all this death, 

all this selfishness and tragedy, people find it 
within themselves to be vulnerable, to love 
and care and extend a helping hand even to 
those who would not do the same.

These are the people shows will be made 

about, not the ones who defined how we acted 
but how we want to believe we acted. Because 
if there is that much good in some of us, there 
has to be hope for the rest of us too. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts

The beautiful chaos of 
‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’

BRENNA GOSS
Daily Arts Writer

‘Come From Away’ understands we cannot move on from tragedy

M. DEITZ

Digital Culture Beat Editor

In March of 2020, Canadian metal band 

Spiritbox was raring to record. They had just gotten 
back from their first tour and were sitting on a pile 
of material.

COVID-19 derailed that plan indefinitely. At one 

point, the band thought, “We might have to just do 
this record over Zoom.” Now, that material is an 
album titled Eternal Blue that will finally release 
Sept. 17. Completing the album took nearly a year 
and an excursion to the Californian desert. 

Spiritbox is made up of Mike Stringer, 

frontwoman (and Stringer’s wife) Courtney 
LaPlante, drummer Zev Rose and bassist Bill 
Crook. The band began in 2016 and has amassed a 
following that places them alongside metal acts like 
Underoath and Slipknot.

Here’s more from Stringer about the album’s 

creative process, Spiritbox’s upcoming tours and 
Stringer’s guitar style. The following conversation 
between the artist and The Daily has been edited 
for clarity. 

***
Anish Tamhaney: Mike, how are you doing?
Mike Stringer: Doing well, man. Gearing up to 

leave in a couple days and getting the new set ready. 
It’s just kind of funny, being home for a very brief 
period of time and then having to go right back out 
again. 

AT: So, Spiritbox’s debut album, Eternal Blue, 

is dropping in a few weeks, and I’m curious about 
your process for creating the album. Do you have a 
specific memory in the process of writing that album 
that really sticks out to you, or you cherish a lot?

MS: While everything else in the world was 

changing, we had to keep redesigning in our heads 
what the recording was going to look like. It even 
went to the point where we were like, well, ‘We 
might have to just do this record over Zoom.’ Just 
remotely. Now, the plus side of that is, it allowed us to 
write more, create a lot more music and have a big pot 
to pull from, so to speak. But the moments that I will 
cherish the most are actually just going out and doing 
it, back in this last February 2021. We went to Joshua 
Tree. And we got a random house on a 20-acre 
property in the middle of the desert. The average 
coffee run took about 45 minutes because that’s how 
far out we were. Just living that, day in, day out for 30 
days, coming out with the album, having a finished 
product at the end of it was definitely something I’ll 
never forget. But what a lead-up. Oh my god, that 
was a long time of just sitting around just waiting 
and hoping that we could get in to record it soon. So, 
frustration, but also very fulfilling at the end.

AT: Going back to what you said about thinking 

about doing the album on Zoom, one thing I’ve heard 
you guys talk about is that years ago, when you were 
a smaller band, you were used to recording things 
in different rooms, maybe even across the country 
and then mixing them together later. Do you think 
that those early days prepared you for writing and 
recording an album during the pandemic?

MS: Big time. Everything up until Eternal Blue 

and the two singles we’ve done previously, “Blessed 
Be” and “Rule of Nines,” the first two EPs were 
done in my parents’ basement. We would hire an 
engineer to record my guitar and I would record 
bass as well. Then I would record Courtney’s 
vocals. We would send all those files off to Dan 
(Braunstein), who actually mixed and produced 
Eternal Blue as well. We’ve been working with him 
since day one. That do-it-yourself mentality — if 
that’s all you know, then you just become used to 
it. Going into a studio and physically recording it is 
such a treat, and it’s such a step up. Once we started 
doing that, with the first two singles “Blessed Be” 
and “Rule of Nines,” I was like, ‘I could never go 
back. I don’t want to do this in my parents’ basement 

anymore.’ With Eternal Blue, we did a lot of writing 
sessions over Zoom, with some stuff that actually 
made the album. Dan took control of my computer, 
I tracked it on and we just saved it. When we were 
thinking about having to do it all over Zoom, it was a 
bummer just because of the sheer amount of songs. 
“Holy Roller” and “Constance” were actually done 
over Zoom. So it’s not, ‘Oh, I don’t know, if we could 
pull this off.’ It was just more so like, ‘I know we can 
pull this off. But, I really don’t want to have to do an 
entire album, sitting in my apartment and hoping 
that the internet connection holds up the entire 
time.’ I definitely think acting in that way for so long 
really prepared us.

AT: I’m actually a guitarist myself, and one of 

the things that I appreciate about your playing, in 
particular, is that you always save room for cleaner 
tones. There’s always a variety rather than just 
distortion all the time. I’m curious to know, how 
does that fit into your writing process? How did 
striking that balance play a role in Eternal Blue?

MS: The album is very different from a lot of 

our stuff that we’ve done. It has the widest variety 
of styles that we’ve done … Learning the balance … 
beforehand was a big back and forth because we 

actually weren’t including Courtney on the writing 
process. I would make an entire song and show it to 
her. And then I’d be like, ‘You have to figure this out 
because I’ve spent a couple weeks on this, so I’m not 
going back and changing stuff.’ Moving forward 
for every song on Eternal Blue, whenever I would 
write something, Courtney would immediately get 
on the mic, and she would start humming a melody 
or whatever. In that way, we could figure out 
immediately if this was the right key or comfortable 
in her range. She ultimately is the most important 
part of this band — she’s the voice of it. So, with the 
clean and ambient elements, I feel like there’s a lot 
more of a balance on Eternal Blue because I was 
able to hear and see what Courtney was going to 
do on each part … It’s all about serving the part, it’s 

all about serving the song … I’ve kind of taken an 
approach of stepping back a little bit and just having 
the guitar sit where it needs to. I’ve been learning 
how to do that, and I still have a little ways to go. But 
I think this effort, at least, is a lot more glued and 
cohesive around the board.

AT: What you’re describing is more of a 

conversation than just you presenting a finished part. 
Do you see that maybe extending to your drummer 
Zev Rose and your bassist Bill Crook in the future, 
where you’re all having a more open conversation?

MS: I’ve always written and recorded the bass. 

I don’t know if that will change. Zev actually did 
collaborate with me on this album, and I’m really 
happy that he did. He’s an incredible drummer, and 
I can only do so much … Zev and I would go back and 
forth, where I would present him something and 
then he would go on the e-kit and actually perform 
the parts and add some extra flair. That made it so 
much better because you can only program drums 
so much. The moment that you can actually take 
the performance of someone’s hands and put it in 
there, it’s a whole ’nother ball game … 

Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer on recording an album during 
the pandemic, his guitar style and heading back on tour

ANISH TAMHANEY

Daily Arts Writer

Design by Grace Aretakis

Wednesday, September 22, 2021 — 5

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

This image is from the official website for “Come From Away,” distributed by Apple TV+.

