A talented cast tries to stay afloat in Swept Away (photo by Emilio Madrid)
SWEPT AWAY
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 29, $56-$216
sweptawaymusical.com
When I first heard that a show called Swept Away was coming to Broadway, I wondered how — and why — anyone would make a musical out of Lina Wertmüller’s 1974 class-clash shipwreck romantic comedy, Swept Away . . . by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August, which was remade in 2002 by Guy Ritchie starring his then-wife, Madonna. I eventually found out that it is in fact based primarily on Mignonette, the 2004 album by Americana roots-rock favorites the Avett Brothers, inspired by the true story of an English yacht that sank in 1884, leaving the crew of four men struggling to survive in a lifeboat, including the captain and teenage cabin boy Richard Parker — the name given to the Bengal tiger in the fictional shipwreck tale The Life of Pi. (There are also songs from such other Avett Brothers records as Emotionalism, The Carpenter, and True Sadness.)
Swept Away is now experiencing a different, unexpected type of survival. Last week, the ninety-minute show, starring Tony winner John Gallagher Jr. (Spring Awakening) and Tony nominee Stark Sands (Kinky Boots) and featuring a book by Tony winner John Logan (Red, Moulin Rouge! The Musical), direction by Tony winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot), and choreography by Tony nominee David Neumann (Hadestown), posted an early closing notice, explaining that the sails would be taken down after only twenty previews and thirty-two regular performances. It was as if the cast and crew were in their own lifeboat, lost at sea.
But on December 11, first Sands at the matinee and then Gallagher in the evening (the show I saw) gleefully announced at the curtain calls that, because of overwhelming audience response and a series of sell-outs, the “dark and risky” musical has a little more life left in it, extending two weeks. (Gallagher dared the audience to spread the word and maybe get another two weeks, but the website currently says “must end December 29.”)
The little musical that could premiered in 2022 at Berkeley Rep and moved to Arena Stage in DC last fall before cruising to Broadway. Swept Away looks and sounds great. The narrative unfolds on Tony-winning designer Rachel Hauck’s duly impressive set, a large ship on its final voyage — it is going to be sold for scrap — that juts out toward the audience and, later, stunningly capsizes, using mirrors on its underside to reveal what is happening in the lifeboat. All the technical aspects are exceptional, from Tony winner Susan Hilferty’s seafaring costumes to four-time Tony winner Kevin Adams’s lighting, Tony winner John Shivers’s sound, and the music arranging, orchestrations, and direction, by Chris Miller, Brian Usifer, and conductor and multi-instrumentalist Will Van Dyke.
The plot could use some course correction, although it is often saved by the stomping music and rousing choreography. A young man known as Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe) has run away from his family farm to go on an adventure at sea, hoping to see the world, then return home and marry his childhood sweetheart, Melody Anne. His older brother (Sands) tracks him down and tries to prevent him from boarding the ship, but soon both of them are on their way to hunt whales, a dying occupation because of the invention and widespread use of paraffin and kerosene.
The captain (Wayne Duvall) is a stern, bearded fellow who insists on being called “sir” by his second mate (Gallagher), a salty sailor who takes Little Brother under his wing as they interact with the extremely well cast crew of men’s men (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).
“We’re pagans and idolators here, waiting to whore ourselves from one pox-ridden port to another,” the mate says to the pious Big Brother, who wants everyone to join him in worship on a Sunday. “We’re sailors and workers; we got no time and no inclination for your pious bullshit, so do not embarrass yourself in front of the crew, and do not inflict your unforgiving sonofabitch G-d on the rest of us.”
Following a fierce squall, the two brothers, the captain, and the second mate are adrift at sea, going weeks without any food and water, growing hungrier and hungrier by the minute, recalling not only Pi Patel’s frightful journey in Life of Pi but Monty Python’s hilarious lifeboat sketch.
The musical doesn’t shy away from taking chances, although not all of them succeed, particularly involving Big Brother and religion. However, such splendidly rendered numbers as “Hard Worker,” “No Hard Feelings,” “May It Last,” and the title song keep everything afloat.
All of their prayers may not have been answered, but getting a reprieve at least through the Christmas holiday is something to sing about, with or without Madonna.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]