Theater Review by Carole Di Tosti…
Characterizing Swept Away as a jukebox musical may identify its genre, but it says little about the show’s incredible impact as a metaphoric, overarching musical of redemption, love, sacrifice and transformation. With book by sterling, Tony award-winning John Logan (Red), and music and lyrics by three-time Grammy Award nominees, the Avett Brothers, Swept Away was presented at Berkley Repertory Theatre and Arena Stage before it shored up on Broadway and opened November 19th.
Swept Away, acutely directed by Michael Mayer, runs in a taut, harrowing crescendo of human grist and lyrical, melodious power. It unspools in 90 minutes with no intermission at the Longacre Theatre.
Based on the Avett Brothers’ album “Mignonette,” about the titular yacht which sank and left four men in a lifeboat dying of thirst and starvation, John Logan pitches Swept Away into a wider expanse of terrifying shipwreck narratives. One thinks of Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, a true narrativeabout awhaling vessel from the nineteenth century, which sank with few crew members surviving to tell their horrific experiences. However similar, Logan’s adaptation is stylized. The fictional story’s simplicity lifts it into the realm of parable, as Brian Usifer’s music supervision, arrangement and orchestrations beautifully convey the Avett Brothers sonorous ballads, pop songs and a few hearty rhythm and blues melds from the album.
A clue to Logan’s intention with Swept Away can be found in the quote from Joseph Conrads’ novel Lord Jim, “There are as many shipwrecks as there are men.” And indeed, there is no more iconic a shipwrecked man as the story-teller Mate (the phenomenal John Gallager, Jr.), who at the top of the musical is dying of tuberculosis in a specialized hospital ward in 1910 New York City. Importuned (“Go to Sleep”), by the ghosts of crew members who died, religiously spiritual Big Brother (the superb Mark Sands), appealing, innocent Little Brother (the soulful Adrian Blake Enscoe), and the mournful, guilt-ridden Captain (the fine Wayne Duvall), Mate gives his long-awaited, truthful, death-bed confession. His story is unforgettable.
As Mate begins, the setting flashes back twenty-two years before to the ship environs in the late nineteenth century. At that time the whaling industry is in decline. The ship where he is First Mate, the Captain mentions, will be sold for parts when it returns to New Bedford after this last voyage. As the rough-hewn, soul-lost, hard-sinning Mate waits for the final crew member to arrive, the ensemble of sailors gets the ship ready (“Hard Worker”). Then, Little Brother blows onto the scene followed by Big Brother, who literally and figuratively is his brother’s keeper. From their introductory songs we discover they have no experience at sea, and Little Brother has run toward the “sailing life” which he envisions offers the freedom to “see the world” and experience adventures (“Nothing Short of Thankful”).
In conflict Big Brother attempts to pull Little Brother off the ship and return him to their farm and bucolic life “planting, sowing and reaping.” Too late, the ship sails with a captive Big Brother on it, responsible for his brother’s welfare. Aligning himself with Little Brother’s yearning for freedom and adventure, Mate takes a shine to Little Brother. In fact, Mate, the Captain and crew conflict with Big Brother’s faith and devotion to a loving God, which they don’t understand and reject. The dualism is configured in the superbly wrought opposing numbers, the rhythmic, compelling “Aint’ No Man,” and the mellifluous “Lord Lay Your Hand on My Shoulder.” Though Big Brother tries to warn Little Brother away from Mate’s dark influence, Little Brother and Mate form a bond when Little Brother sings of Melody Anne, his love back home (‘Swept Away”).
Not heeding the signs of the phosphorescence on the ocean that portends bad weather, Duvall’s Captain fatally steers the ship into a squall. In a theatrically amazing dramatic event, thanks to Rachel Hauck’s superbly rendered scenic design, the hull lifts into the air as the bow plunges invisibly into the hellish depths of the ocean. As the terrified audience watches the hull lift up and up with the accompanying fearful lightning strikes and eerie sky and ocean colors designed by Kevin Adams with sound design thunder crashes by John Shivers, the experience is palpable and horrifically real.
Though we know Mate survives to tell the tale, what about the others? Our questions are answered as the ghosts of the first scene show up as shipwrecked living souls clinging to life, in a dinghy. There they must “maintain hope,” and brave the elements without cover from the fierce, raw sunlight, and without food or water for days, until a ship spots them.
Sadly, Little Brother, who suffers miserably from broken limbs when a mast falls on him, is not long for their hellscape. As the days draw on, only Big Brother’s faith sustains and he believes a ship will come to their rescue. Meanwhile, the desperate Mate becomes demon filled. In the thrilling “Satan Pulls the Strings,” Gallagher, Jr.’s Mate shares his dark plans with the broken-hearted Captain who relinquishes his authority to Mate, as Enscoe’s Little Brother envisions his transcendence (“The Once and Future Carpenter”), taking comfort from Christ’s sacrifice, death and resurrection.
Who can willingly die of thirst? Mate, as any human being would, leads like an instinctual wolf by picking off the weakest member of a God-forsaken crew to be a blood sacrifice for their survival. From Mate’s storytelling we discover that the battle for good and evil in the souls of the survivors continues to rage. Mate returns to the present and confronts the truth he has long avoided, as he releases himself into the ghostly spirits’ loving embrace.
Swept Away is an archetypal production which satisfies all the dramatic elements befitting a Greek tragedy. Importantly, the music uplifts and the symbolism and themes of love, sacrifice and redemption are poignant and soul wrenching. Kudos to David Neuman (choreography), Chris Miller (arrangement & orchestrations), Will Van Dyke (music direction) Susan Hilferty (costume design) and the above-mentioned creatives who effected Mayer’s vision to near perfection. This is not one to miss.
Swept Away. Through May 25, 2025, at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue).https://sweptawaymusical.com/
Photos by Emilio Madrid.
