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by Emma Donoghue, directed by Gil Garratt

Blyth Festival, Blyth Memorial Theatre, Blyth

June 28-August 12 & September 25-October 5, 2025

“O hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea”

The Wind Coming Over the Sea, now playing at the Blyth Festival, is a tribute to the courage and suffering of the people of Ireland who immigrated to Canada during the Irish Potato Famine. The play is written by Emma Donoghue, who immigrated from Ireland to Canada herself in 1998. Donoghue is the acclaimed author of the novel Room (2010) and the 2017 play of the same name based on it staged in 2022 by the Grand Theatre London. The play is filled with traditional songs of Ireland, England and Scotland which cause the work’s mood to be almost more reflective than dramatic. The play has been beautifully directed by Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt in the company’s signature neo-Brechtian style and features a number of outstanding performances.

The play, covering the period of 1848 to 1850, focusses on the lives of Henry and Jane Johnson and is based on the historical correspondence of the two. The couple run a store in Antrim, Northern Ireland, and have been extending credit to their clients hit by the famine who have become too poor to pay. Their kindness is not rewarded. John is imprisoned for debt and while in prison vows that he and his wife and child will emigrate to Canada, where some of their relatives have already gone.

Henry, worried for the safety of his wife and child, says that he will go to Canada first, find work and then send for Jane and their child (soon children). Logical as Henry’s plan is, he and Jane suffer greatly from loneliness and write to each other often. Donoghue says in the Study Guide for the show, “Just about every scene in The Wind Coming Over the Sea springs from a line in these travel-stained and tattered letters”. (You can read the originals themselves in the Irish Emigration Database at www.dippam.ac.uk/ied.)

The play emphasizes that emigration was no easy matter. The ship Henry is sailing on – crammed with people many sick and dying – is blown off course and it takes eight weeks to arrive in New York City. There, where anti-Irish prejudice is strong and Irishmen are regarded as Papists, wastrels, drunkards and brawlers, Henry has no luck finding work. He heads to Canada by train and by boat on the Erie Canal. In Canada, he finds his relatives are unhelpful since they are struggling themselves. Anti-Irish prejudice is no less strong than in New York. Cursing the way so many Irishmen undesirables travel from New York to Canada, one Canadian states, “If it was up to me, I’d build a wall!” – a remark that caused a deep intake of breath in the audience and a sudden awareness of how relevant Henry and Jane’s story still is.

Luckily, Henry finally finds a farmer sympathetic to his plight who is willing to allow Henry to work for room and board. After Henry proves himself trustworthy, the farmer is willing to offer a real wage. In 1850 when the Great Famine ends , Jane finds herself in an awkward position. She is able to reopen the store and it begins to thrive just as Henry writes to tell her to join him with their two “wee’uns”.

Garratt has assembled a fine cast of actor/musicians for the show. Donoghue has written the play with numerous Brechtian strategies in mind that have now become so common we may forget that they were meant to heighten theatricality over realism. These techniques include episodic structure, narration, songs, interaction with the audience, minimal scenery and doubling of roles. Such techniques have been shaped many productions at Blyth such as the Donnelly Trilogy in 2023 and have become the natural method at Blyth of presenting an epic story.

Donoghue’s play is enacted by only six adult actors. Landon Doak plays Henry and Shelayna Christante plays Jane, while four other actors – Geoffrey Armour, Masae Day, Michelle Fisk and George Meanwell play three or more roles each. Though the play is truly an ensemble piece, the role of Henry is still crucial to the play’s success. I have seen Doak (they/them) many times before but this is the first time I’ve seen them in a vehicle that allowed them to show off all of their talents. As an actor Doak is instantly sympathetic as Henry. Doak imbues Henry with feelings of both optimism and hopelessness that seem to be constantly at war. Unfortunately, Henry does fit the stereotype of an Irishman by his fondness for drink, yet when in New York he tries to reform himself and even takes the pledge. One calamity after another in the New World wears down Henry’s resistance. Throughout the action Doak has made us care so much for Henry that when Henry is tempted to return to the bottle we hold out breath and pray that he won’t give in.

Doak effortlessly brings out all the pain and melancholy in Henry’s letters to Jane. But Doak excels at more than the spoken word. His singing is beautiful. Doak brings a full, rounded tone to each of his many songs while imbuing them with heart-breaking emotion. His rendition of the Scottish tune “The Parting Glass” is particularly memorable because it so well captures the image of this good, kind-hearted man as a failure: “Of all the money that e'er I had / I have spent it in good company / Oh and all the harm I've ever done / Alas, it was to none but me”. I hope that Doak finds more roles that provide such an opportunity to sing.

The other strong singers in the cast are Geoffrey Armour and Michelle Fisk. Fisk plays a wide range mostly of Jane’s relatives while Armour mostly plays a diverse lot of the men Henry meets in the New World. Fisk’s main role is Jane’s mother whom she endows with seemingly unshakeable dourness. Armour’s main role is Jane’s father who seems to project an unyielding severity. Both Armour and Fisk, however, also suggest that Jane’s parents take such a strict stand against Henry only out of their care for Jane’s. Yet, when both parents see how faithfully Jane loves Henry and how hard done by Henry is, they begin to soften.

Donoghue’s play shows that Jane, while stuck in Ireland waiting for Henry’s instructions, suffers as much emotionally as does Henry in the New World. Shelayna Christante’s role as Jane McConnell Johnson does not really take off until Act 2, but there Christante finely depicts Jane’s growth from a sense of dependence to one of independence. Jane gains this first when she is able to reopen the store in Antrim, but Christante demonstrates how Jane even surprises herself by her own courage and resilience when she finally does sail across the Atlantic and when she is able to determine her own fate once she arrives.

Masae Day and George Meanwell play a host of minor characters but they really shine as musicians. Day’s violin enlivens every song she accompanies and Meanwell plays at least five different instruments. Meanwell takes on the function of narrator, noting the time and place of a plot that flips back and forth across the Atlantic and carries on over three years.

One uncredited actor is young Gloria Garratt, daughter of the Artistic Director, who plays the older of Jane’s two children. Needless to say, her confidence on stage is a joy throughout.

Ken MacKenzie’s set places all the action in the hold of a ship where the shelves in the back wall serve as bunks for the poorer passengers and, for scenes on land, as bins for storage. The top rank of bunks cleverly conceals a huge roll of cloth that the actors unfurl to represent a sail. symbolize His lighting in synch with Adam Campbell dramatic sound design creates the frightening storm that delays Henry’s passage to New York. Meghan Choma’s costumes ground the play in its historical period.

The numerous songs also help make the historical period come alive. The selections range from jigs to well-known songs such as “Black is the Colour”, well sung by Christante; "Eternal Father, Strong to Save", the hymn sung in beautiful a cappella arrangement; and the “Connemara Cradle Song” whose lines give the play its title: “Angels are coming to watch over thee / So list to the wind coming over the sea”.

Garratt’s direction is an inventive as usual. Frequent entrances of actors from the back of the auditorium to the stage immerse us in the drama. For those wishing to be even closer to the action, Garratt has allowed for two rows of seats on either side of the stage itself. Anyone sitting there must be prepared to be involved in some surprising aspects of the story. Metaphorically, the presence of part of the audience on stage underscores that the story of Henry and Jane’s immigration is also the story of all the non-Indigenous members of the audience. The joyfully boisterous finale and group sing-along only further reinforce the play’s celebration of community.

Donoghue first wrote about the Johnsons in 1998 after she became aware of their correspondence. Now her tale of the struggles of immigrants has taken on a much larger significance than she could have imagined back then. Anti-immigrant sentiment has risen around the globe, most ironically in countries whose majority population is the result of immigration. The play clearly shows the pain of people who have to leave home to find a better life, the danger of travel and the rejection and disappointment that they encounter when they reach their new home. Garratt’s direction is so all-embracing and the ensemble’s song-filled performances so vivid that the show will not fail to move you.

As it happens the show has become so popular that the Blyth Festival has arranged for additional performances from September 25 to October 5. This will give all those who somehow neglected to see the show another chance to brighten their day.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Shelayna Christante, Masae Day, Michelle Fisk and Landon Doak; Masae Day, Geoffrey Armour, Landon Doak and Michelle Fisk; Landon Doak, Gloria Garratt, Shelayna Christante and George Meanwell; Shelayna Christante and Landon Doak. © 2015 Lyon Smith.

For tickets visit: blythfestival.com.