‘Welcome to the Rock’: Come from Away as happiness machine

Abstract

Mainstream musicals rely on popular appeal. Even when the content is serious or tragic, the affective experience generated is generally pleasant. Almost by default, they are happy objects ‐ veritable happiness-circulating machines capable of adhering their own pleasant affects to other objects, whether physical (e.g. things, bodies) or conceptual (e.g. values, ideals, myths). In this article, I explore Come from Away as a happiness-making machine capable of adhering its own happy affects to a homegrown mythos that imagines Canada (not unproblematically) as a welcoming utopia of tolerance and togetherness.