Swept Away tells the tale of a shipwreck and the majority of the show is simply four characters in a life boat drifting through the open ocean. The four main characters are: Mate (John
Gallagher, Jr.), Big Brother (Stark Sands), Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe), and Captain (Wayne Duvall). In addition to these four, there are 12 more actors in the ensemble
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this show. I went in without knowing much about the plot beyond that it involved a shipwreck. The acting in this show blew me away. Four actors in a life
boat, even in a single act show, seems like a difficult concept to sell, but these four definitely sold it. At no point did any of the cast come off as being dishonest, which made the strife the characters go through seem absolutely believable. Add to this the amazing singing talents of our main four (special shout out to Adrian Blake Enscoe for his singing ability) which brought this
tale to life.
Even more impressive, perhaps, was the set. The show opens with a dying Mate in a tuberculosis ward and he lies there as the audience fills the theatre. The show itself is then told through flashback, as three of our main characters (beginning the show as ghosts) urge Mate to “tell their story” before he passes away. We, the audience, are then quite literally swept away onto a whaling ship where we meet the entire cast of characters. The whaling ship is huge. And the ship wreck was amazing and definitely believable. Ropes are thrown down, dropping the
sails of the ship, as one by one the members of the ensemble are thrown overboard. Finally, the entire ship rises until the audience is left looking at the underside of the boat (covered with
mirrors), and revealing our main cast left in a life boat, looking absolutely disheveled. It is here that the vast majority of the show takes place. The life boat itself is on a turn table, and it didn’t
just rotate, but rather it would sometimes rotate, and sometimes bounce between which direction it span. It moved slowly and delicately, and even allowed the life boat to have a slight
rocking to it, which did a great job in making the audience believe that they are watching people randomly drifting in the open ocean. It is here that we really see the actors shine. We learn of
the strife, the struggle, the heartache, the emotional toll that losing his crew creates for Captain, who has to come to terms with the fact that members of his crew went down with the
ship, but he did not. We learn of Little Brother’s love interest and the life that he wants to live. We also learn that Little Brother was hit by the mast of the ship as the boat sank, injuring him
gravely. We see the desperation from Big Brother as he works diligently for weeks to keep Little Brother alive. And we see Mate, who is the most realistic of all the characters – he understands
from the start that they will all likely die and that horrible things may need to be done in order for any of them to survive.
And it all felt so real… until the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the show.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
After being lost at sea for at least 10 days, it gets to the point where the audience is informed that Little Brother will likely not even live until the next day due to the injuries that he sustained
when the ship sank. Honestly, Adrian Blake Enscoe really did a great job at physically appearing weak and frail, making Little Brother appear like he was barely surviving. This provokes Mate to
ask Captain for his approval to kill Little Brother with the intention of eating him so that the other three can survive. Captain, at this point emotionally destroyed, refuses to make a decision and leaves it up to Mate. Meanwhile, Big Brother overhears and begins resisting this idea. Little Brother tells Big Brother that it is fine and that he is willing to sacrifice himself because it will save the others and he is dying anyway. But he wants to see one more sunrise, which everyone agrees to. Come the sunrise, Big Brother insists on being the one to actually kill Little Brother, however, in a shocking turn of events, Big Brother cuts his own throat…
And from that point on, the entire show felt like an afterthought. Immediately, the show shifts back to the tuberculosis ward and we see Mate surrounded by the ghosts of Little Brother, Big
Brother, and Captain. The audience is then informed, not shown, of each character’s fate and the eventual rescue of the three remaining characters. And this is the only part of the show that
felt so fake, so jarringly out of place with the rest of the show that I wanted to scream, “Show! Don’t tell!” The audience is not shown the rescue, but we are told about it. Captain nicely informs everyone of how he was treated when he was rescued, when he got home, and when and how he eventually died. Little Brother does the same thing, but it doesn’t make any sense for the character of Little Brother to survive. The script makes it very clear that Mate, Captain, and Little Brother survive this ordeal by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Big Brother. This destroyed my suspension of disbelief, leaving me only in disbelief. So, I am left with a few conclusions: either Little Brother was not actually hit by the ships mast, however, nothing in this show indicated that Mate is an unreliable narrator or Big Brother (who, as a character, is very religious) is literally Jesus Christ, which feels very blasphemous for the very religious character to actually be Jesus. The show went from being incredibly realistic to not being realistic at all in what felt like a blink of the eye.
This show did not last long on Broadway and I have a few ideas as to why. The first being the sheer size of the cast. While having 16 actors on stage for the big muscle numbers that take place before the shipwreck was certainly impressive, it was also unnecessary and could probably have been done with just four or five ensemble members. I have to wonder if paying for 12 ensemble members was a factor in this show not making enough to stay open. That’s a lot of actors to pay to be there when they are only on stage for maybe half an hour. Combine that with an ending that feels so unfinished and I understand why people may not be so interested in spending the money to see this musical. I would have loved to have seen what this show could have been if it was expanded into two full acts, showing the audience the rescue, and more. Flesh it out and remember to show, not tell.
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