In “Swept Away,” which is loosely inspired by the grim true story of a 19th century shipwreck, a quartet of magnetic performers work passionately to deliver the mellifluous folk-rock score culled from a decade’s worth of songs composed by the popular indie band the Avett Brothers. The production is marked by some stunningly staged moments that showcase the work of the lighting and set designers. But if the creative team is hoping that this dark musical will provoke deep questions — about the ethics of survival; about guilt and redemption — I was left with a more practical question: Is now the right time or Broadway the right place to mount such a bleak and basic book?
The spare 90-minute musical is actually twice removed from the historical shipwreck, which is a famous case in maritime law. An English yacht christened the Mignonette sank in 1884 during a voyage to Australia, stranding the crew in a lifeboat without food or water. To survive, two of the crew members murdered the 17-year-old cabin boy, and then ate him. When the survivors were rescued, they were charged with murder.
In 2004, the Avett Brothers put together a studio album, “Mignonette,” with songs loosely inspired by the historical events. Ten years later, producer Matthew Masten sold them on the idea of a musical adaptation, and then hired writer John Logan (Tony winning playwright of “Red,” Oscar nominated screenwriter of “Gladiator,” librettist of “Moulin Rouge the Musical.”) Logan selected fifteen songs from the entire Avett Brothers catalogue, only a handful of them from “Mignonette,” and turned the story into fiction, transposing it to a whaling ship that sinks off the coast of New England, and creating his own characters, with imagined backstories if no given names.
John Gallagher Jr. portrays Mate, who is the narrator and central figure. We first see him dying in a tubercular ward in a public hospital in 1910, being urged by the ghosts of the other three men to confess the story so that he can die in peace. But when he takes us back before the shipwreck, to New Bedford in 1888, it becomes clear he was already a wreck of a man. “Life’s happenstance led me on a circuitous downward spiral to this place and these sad old ships,” he tells us; when they’re not singing, the characters tend to sound like the narrators of a 19th century novel.
On board, we meet the Captain (a deep voice and convincing Wayne Duvall) grizzled, inept, on his final voyage
then, an eager youth Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe, making an auspicious Broadway debut) who’s escaped the drudgery of farm life for a chance at adventure,
Big Brother (Starks Sands) has chased after his little brother, intending to bring him to his senses, and take him back home. But (implausibly), while they argue on the docked ship, it sets sail from port before Big Brother can take his brother ashore.
For the first hour, they are part of the crew, along with a dozen manly shipmates who add harmony and heft to the Avetts’ songs, enhanced by David Neumann’s choreography.
Then the shipwreck occurs, spectacularly, and only the four survive, on a dinghy at the tip of the stage, for the remaining half hour. In its spareness, it is unsparing.
I found the score alternating between lovely and lively, American roots music emphasizing banjo, harmonica, accordion, violins and acoustic guitars. Some I couldn’t get enough of: “Ain’t No Man” was driven by an impossibly catchy percussive refrain that reminded me of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” It’s true the lyrics were only occasionally distinctive, existing largely in service to the melodies (“I’m a hard, hard worker, I’m working ev’ry day/I’m a hard, hard worker, and I’m savin’ all my pay”), and their placement didn’t always make a lot of sense. In the title song, “Swept Away,” Little Brother sings longingly of his girl, Melody Anne (“well you send my life a whirling darling/ when you’re twirling…”) – the same Melody Anne whom he left behind, along with the rest of his life, which he’s just told us he found unbearably boring.
But you need not be an Avett Brothers fan beforehand to find satisfaction in the musical numbers. Could these sailors be sexier or in finer voice?
In thinking about “Swept Away” afterwards, and casually researching the story, I landed on a fascinating tidbit: The 17-year-old cabin boy who was murdered aboard the Mignonette was named Richard Parker, which is the name that Yann Martel gave to the shipwrecked tiger in “The Life of Pi.” This led me to realize that Martel’s novel, turned into a Broadway musical of its own, was one of the many works of literature, theater, movies and music that “Swept Away” evoked for me in one way or another. Among these were Moby Dick, Traffic’s John Barleycorn is Dead, Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Sting’s The Last Ship, Dylan’s Girl from the North Country. These inadvertent evocations didn’t make me view “Swept Away” as derivative. Rather, it left me aware of the qualities that were in comparatively insufficient supply in the musical – tension and details and meaning.
Swept Away
Longacre
Update: Closing December 29
Running time: 90 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $46 – $216. Digital lottery $40. Digital rush: $45
Music and lyrics by the Avett Brothers
Book by John Logan
Directed by Michael Mayer
Choreography by David Neumann
Music arranged and orchestrated by Chris Miller and Brian Usifer;
Set design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Kevin Adams, sound design by John Shivers
Cast: John Gallagher Jr. as Mate, Stark Sands as Big Brother, Adrian Blake Enscoe as Little Brother and Wayne Duvall as Captain. Josh Breckenridge, Hunter Brown, Matt DeAngelis, John Michael Finley, Cameron Johnson, Brandon Kalm, Rico LeBron, Michael J. Mainwaring, Orville Mendoza, Chase Peacock, Robert Pendilla, Tyrone L. Robinson, David Rowen and John Sygar.
Photographs by Emilio Madrid
