Broadway shipwreck has people songs — and cannibalism

One thing I gained’t be saying on my demise mattress: “I wish I would’ve watched more shows about boats.”

One more crew of singing seafarers units off within the Avett Brothers’ uneven “Swept Away,” which opened Tuesday night time on the Longacre Theatre. The musical provides a twisted new twist, by way of — cannibalism.

On Broadway? Not so appetizing.

A determined meal of human flesh undoubtedly doesn’t pair nicely with the band’s pretty-to-ravishing people songs from their 2004 album “Mignonette,” named for an 1800s English yacht, the passengers of which succumbed to the grotesque act after their ship sank and a number of other had been stranded aboard a lifeboat for 3 weeks.

Earlier than and after they nosh, they sing. What else?

On the present’s begin, a few years later, we meet Mate, a ripe-looking bearded fellow who’s on his personal deathbed pondering boats. The tormented man, performed by John Gallagher Jr. with a kooky Northeast accent that’s supposedly backwoods Vermont, is traumatized by the harrowing reminiscences of his survival on the unforgiving ocean. 

The green-lit ghosts of his three companions implore the weirdo to “fess up!” and at last inform their horrible story. 

It’s a musical, so naturally he complies. The plot is way from based mostly on a real story, by the way in which. The characters don’t have names, and the motion has been shifted from a British constitution to a nonetheless not precisely relatable American whaling expedition. 

Not often do I recommend that any present be longer than it already is, however 90 minutes is an awfully condensed span to go from boarding to blood-thirst. 

In John Logan’s streamlined e-book, our 4 major characters have nary a second to increase past their fundamental descriptions, that are as follows:

Mate’s a boozehound scallawag, Captain (Wayne Duvall) is a dying breed of old style whaler, Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe) is a lovesick optimist who desires to discover the world, and Brother (Stark Sands) is his deeply spiritual sibling who doesn’t.

The primary few days, they grin and fortunately croon, “Yo ho!”-style. Dressed as Bushwick mixologists by costume designer Susan Hilferty, the sailors butt heads, too, however ultimately settle for one another. Kind of. 

Little Brother longs for his woman again residence, the one beating coronary heart “Swept Away” narratively can declare.

Enscoe, with not a lot materials to anchor to, nonetheless makes a stirring Broadway debut because the youngest member. He has a beautiful, crystalline voice as he sings straight as much as the twinkling stars, and radiates a star’s vitality from the stage. 

The remainder, partly resulting from inhabiting world-weary characters, come off extra jaded.

When their doomed vessel runs right into a harsh storm, Rachel Hauck’s set of decks and masts capsizes in spectacular vogue as winds whip the viewers’s faces like a 4DX film screening of “Avatar.”

The reveal — a colorless wood lifeboat — is a right away letdown, although. 

That bland rowboat is all there may be to take a look at for the subsequent 45 minutes. Director Michael Mayer spinning the floating object round and round isn’t sufficient to brighten up the static picture, particularly after the same “Life of Pi” was so visually astounding two seasons in the past.

The second half of the present is impenetrably unusual. The characters’ worsening scenario doesn’t transfer or enthrall anyone as we await the grotesque inevitable. 

Because the sunbaked days go by, the boys develop weaker. However on Broadway, crippling starvation doesn’t cease ya from singing out. Enscoe’s quantity is elegant; Gallagher’s — uptempo and rock-ish — is Disney’s “Haunted Mansion.” 

Then, within the final 20 minutes, when speak turns to who amongst them must be cooked for dinner, ticket-buyers begin to rethink that post-show reservation at Joe Allen. The liver there may be completely scrumptious, however “Swept Away” can have you looking “vegan.”