SWEPT AWAY Is Lost at Sea — Review

There’s an attractive synergy to a work which marries the music of the folk rock band The Avett Brothers to the story of the Mignonette, an English yacht which sank in 1884, leading three of its lifeboat-stranded survivors to kill and eat the fourth member of their party in an incident which prompted a now-landmark legal precedent. Added to the perennially shaggy John Gallagher, Jr. and a recent online obsession with sea shanties, it would appear Swept Away, a new musical based on this tale which opened tonight at the Longacre, had a recipe for success. So then why does it feel so… adrift?

The book, by John Logan, is more conflicted with itself than any of its characters. Though Gallagher’s character, listed as “Mate” in the program, is introduced at the top of the show as a man haunted by his past, he is not fleshed into a recognizable lead. (This is not the fault of Gallagher, who sounds terrific and does as best he can with the material.) Following that brief prologue, he playfully grouses about his hard-luck maritime life on the deck of a ship about to sail out of Massachusetts, under the leadership of its no-nonsense captain (Wayne Duvall). Aboard comes a chipper young lad (Adrian Blake Enscoe, listed as “Little Brother”) looking to escape rural life, chased by a pious older brother (Stark Sands) trying to convince him of the virtues of humble homesteading. A siblinghood forged in whining, they’re quickly roped into the voyage and just as soon start feuding with Mate, who gleefully mocks their desire to lead the other men in prayer.

Mate is always joking around, smirking at his fellow seamen or attempting punchlines on the audience, and it’s never exactly clear what drives this joy. He marks himself a loner, with nothing holding him to the mainland, and Michael Mayer’s similarly unmoored direction doesn’t establish whether characters are speaking to each other, beyond the fourth wall, or merely talking to themselves. It’s all a bundle of proclamations delivered with the smugness of men who’ve chosen preposterously difficult lives and don’t miss an opportunity to remark upon their toughness. If there were private, social, or economic forces driving any of them towards a life at sea, Logan’s book does not explore them.

Instead, Swept Away relies on the Avett Brothers’ music to fill in these gaps, mostly taken from their 2004 album Mignonette, along with others from their catalogue. Though the songs are tuneful and work well in the show’s milieu, they are far from character-defining or moving the story along, something for which the Avetts cannot be faulted. The score comprises mostly ballads – about their women back on land, about the sea, about their love of god – and it’s hard to care about any of them when so little else is known about the sailors. Logan interweaves numbers without clear definition, and songs are often interrupted by book scenes or shifts in their own melody.

It is at its midpoint, when the storm that sinks the ship hits, that the production reaches its theatrical heights. In a truly impressive transition, Rachel Hauck’s set, aided by Kevin Adams’ lighting and John Shivers’ sound design, spectacularly gives way to the lifeboat on which these four men will spend the second half of the show. More tightly focused, sans the ensemble of shipmates, the characters come into starker relief. But darkness creeps into Mate’s eyes without much build, and though an argument is inevitably had over his proposed cannibalizing, it is far too pat to carry any emotional weight, or really land as a dramatic moment. (In a confounding sequence, he reminds the others he is alone in the world, then asks the audience what they’d do to survive in order to see their loved ones again.) The forces which drive a man to his basest survival instincts would make for compelling theatre but, again, the musical keeps insight at bay. It barrels towards its conclusion, never stopping to investigate itself, and drifts away just as carelessly.

As with Tammy Faye, another new musical this season which today announced its closing, Swept Away a musical cursed by the finality of the Broadway premiere. A few more workshops to iron out a problematic book and it really could work; its elements brought together under a firmer directorial hand. The Avett Brothers’ music, with their specific sound and sense of down-home longing, seem ideal for a theatrical adaptation, but it’s a shame it’s left at sea by a book with no clear navigation, flailing its arms for rescue.

Swept Away is in performance at the Longacre Theatre on West 48th St in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.