The temptation to come up with disastrous voyage metaphors when evaluating Swept Away, the new musical at the Longacre after runs at Berkeley Rep and Arena Stage, is great. The folk-rock tuner employing the music of The Avett Brothers mainly from their album “Mignonette,” even at a relatively short, intermissionless 90 minutes, is a difficult slog. The cast is passionate and director Michael Mayer does his best to enliven the static story, largely with the aid of Rachel Hauck’s impressively gargantuan set and Kevin Adams’s thrill-ride lighting, but John Logan’s book fails to develop beyond melodramatic malarkey about redemption and brotherly love, and the show sinks without a trace.
The premise isn’t exactly promising. A patient in a 19th century tuberculosis ward is haunted by three maritime ghosts (they sway in unison to suggest the pitching of a ship). They demand he tell their story to his fellow indigents (the audience) and his gruesome part in it. The rest of the show is a flashback to an ill-fated whaling sojourn which ends in shipwreck and tragedy. None of the four protagonists are given names and aren’t fully fleshed out beyond a few cliched traits. The Mate (John Gallagher, Jr.) is the patient of the prologue and we eventually learn he’s a scurvy sort. Big Brother (Stark Sands) is a pious goody-goody determined to bring his adventure-hungry Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe) home to the farm, but gets caught on board. The Captain (Wayne Duvall) grumbles about serving on a broken-down vessel in a dying industry.
In the first half of the show, not much happens expect the crew of 12 stomps around Hauck’s detailed shipboard, singing of hard work and loose women, performing David Neuman’s Carousel-inspired choreography. They’re all manly men, you see. About 40 minutes in, the ship is scuttled in a massive storm (cue the wind machine), Hauck’s set performs a miraculous transformation, and we are adrift with the four main characters in a lifeboat. The chorus have all drowned, but they return briefly as back-up for one number.
It’s possible to create vital drama in such a confined space. Look at the film and stage versions of Life of Pi, or Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Lifeboat.” But the admittedly infectious songs by the Avett Brothers tend to be repetitious. An emotional point is made and then repeated at length. (Weirdly, the songs are listed alphabetically in the Playbill rather than in order of being sung.) Similarly, Logan’s book states a theme and then just delivers it again without much development. Mayer tries his best to provide conflict and drama, but he can’t do much beyond revolving the lifeboat.
Gallagher provides a measure of dark spark as the tormented Mate. The highlight of the show is his catalogue of the character’s past grim occupations. While explaining his motivations for a particularly heinous act he’s contemplating committing in the lifeboat (no spoilers), the Mate lists his previous nefarious jobs from con man to overseer of slaves. Gallagher creates a haunting narrative with a few lines and fleshes out a character the author leaves incomplete. Sands and Enscoe have lovely voices and sweetly sell their solos and duets, but their sibling roles are skimpy. Duvall’s Captain is a similar cipher despite the actor’s efforts to fill in the blanks. Swept Away wants to be a dark voyage of the soul but is only a short cruise around Broadway.
