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+.