I’ve been thinking about the musical SWEPT AWAY ever since I saw its New England premiere capping off SpeakEasy Stage’s 35th Anniversary season, its first destination since an acclaimed Broadway sojourn. Director Jeremy Johnson runs a tight ship: 90 minutes from stem to stern! Though the set design is merely serviceable, what happens on that set is well done: well cast, sung, acted, and danced by an appealing ensemble intoning a catchy, lyrical score by The Avett Brothers. But in its climactic moments, I was suddenly swept off course by what felt like a rogue wave of religious agenda leaving me stranded.
Photo: Nile Scott Studios
SWEPT AWAY is based on a true story in 1884 about the wreck of a yacht headed for Australia called “Mignonette.” That is also the title of the 2004 Avett Brothers album from which this musical’s score is culled along with other original music. Four men from the Mignonette made it into a lifeboat but only three survived having resorted to killing and eating the fourth, the ailing 17 year-old cabin boy, before they were rescued and tried for murder.
John Logan, who wrote the book for SWEPT AWAY, transplants the action to 1888 and to a whaling ship wrecked off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. This now becomes an odyssey of an “everyman” crew with no names: there’s “Mate” a lusty, hard drinking sinner (Peter Dimaggio); “Captain” whose days at sea are winding down (a dignified Christopher Chew); the almost giddy “Little Brother” who’s fled the farm for adventure on the high seas (Max Connor); and dour “Big Brother”(Bishop Levesque) who jumps aboard to drag his little brother back home where he insists the real meaning of life lies. Love and sacrifice are Big Brother’s creed and he sings one of the show’s most beautiful and moving songs “Lord Lay Your Hand On My Shoulder.”
I was swept along by exuberantly-staged numbers where a tight knit group of sailors find their way on the roiling sea of life, kicking up their heels and singing their everyday joys and sorrows in sprightly, choreographed numbers wrapped in the rhythm and warmth of the Avetts’ folk rock harmonies. At one point, the crew squares off between Big Brother and Mate and their dueling philosophies: living for the immediate gratifications of the material world, or the spiritual rewards of a life of discipline and sacrifice for others. To its credit, the production does flesh these characters out as more than mere symbols of various approaches to life.
When the ship is wrecked, these four are left without food and water, and with some heavy moral choices as they confront their mortality. We see what’s coming– but there’s a twist I cannot reveal which narrowed the tale’s focus to make a very specific point about about self-sacrifice, brotherly love, and redemption. Suddenly, I saw a specifically Christian agenda at the wheel driving a self-serving and self-righteous decision, yanking us out of the action and even flying in the face of common sense and decency in these horrifying circumstances, potentially resulting in more harm than good. The final twist suddenly placed the universal themes of love and sacrifice (already embedded in this complex human experience) in the employ of a narrower agenda the show means to proselytize rather than enlarging their scope.
Every time I go to the theater, I go like a seeker on the high seas, headed for who knows where! I set out hoping to be swept away, but this time I found myself dashed back upon the rocky shores of a misapplied catechism lesson. I will keep looking. You can too at SpeakEasy Stage where SWEPT AWAY is shipwrecked through May 23rd.
