Good morning, and welcome to Broadway News’ Broadway Review by Brittani Samuel — our overview of reactions, recommendations and information tied to last night’s Broadway opening of “Swept Away.”
RUNDOWN
On paper, “Swept Away” — an original musical about men getting lost at sea, set to the music of the Avett Brothers — has all the ingredients of gripping theater. In book writer John Logan’s hands, these are humble, sheen-less men caught up in unfathomable disaster. Every choice made by the four central characters — known only by their archetypal titles — Mate (John Gallagher Jr.), Captain (Wayne Duvall), Big Brother (Stark Sands) and Little Brother (Adrian Blake Enscoe) — is pregnant with consequence. What are they willing to do to survive? Set on the high seas, “Swept Away” is also a feast of stagecraft. And yet, it feels like a show resting on the laurels of well-packaged profundity without ever fully evoking it.
Rachel Hauck’s scenic work delivers the most thrilling moment of the play, while Susan Hilferty’s costumes ground these characters in the grime, sweat and muck of their working-class world. I could write poetry about Kevin Adams’ lighting design — thick, hazy saturations of seafoam and emerald greens; the same golden flushes warming Jack and Rose on the bow of the Titanic — all of this moodiness like a live Impressionist seascape. Despite it all, for me, “Swept Away” does not land.
