'The Last Ship,' With Songs by Sting, Opens on Broadway
Hard times, blighted lives and the bleak humor that occasionally lifts the fog: The universe of 'The Last Ship,' the new musical with a score by Sting about a shipbuilding town in decline, lies at some distance from its peppier neighbors on Broadway, where megaphoned uplift and easy escapism tend to thrive.
For that reason alone, it's hard not to root for this ambitious, earnest musical, which opened on Sunday night at the Neil Simon Theater. Rich in atmosphere - I half expected to see sea gulls reeling in the rafters - and buoyed by a seductive score that ranks among the best composed by a rock or pop figure for Broadway, the musical explores with grit and compassion the lives of the town's disenfranchised citizens, left behind as the industry that gave them their livelihood set sail for foreign lands.
But along with its accomplishments, which include a host of vital performances from its ample cast under the direction of Joe Mantello, 'The Last Ship' also has its share of nagging flaws. The book, by John Logan ('Red') and Brian Yorkey ('Next to Normal'), and inspired in part by Sting's own upbringing in the northeast England town Wallsend, where the show is set, is unfocused and diffuse. It's hamstrung by a division between a David versus Goliath story - of the little folk fighting against the faceless forces of the global economy - and a romantic love triangle.
A prologue introduces us to the restless young Gideon (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), who yearns to escape the town where he's grown up, and where his forebears have always worked the shipyards. Even after an injury at the yards leaves his father, Joe (Jamie Jackson), unable to work, the pugnacious Gideon rebels against the life ordained for him. 'His life may be over,' he tells his girlfriend, Meg (Dawn Cantwell), 'but mine's not.' Although she refuses to join him, Gideon sets out 'to find us a berth at the end of the earth,' as he sings, and promises to return to rescue her.
Youthful dreams have a way of evaporating when they meet the hard exigencies of life, and when Gideon returns 15 years later (Michael Esper plays the adult Gideon, Rachel Tucker the adult Meg), he finds that the town has sunk into economic depression, the shipyards have closed and Meg has moved on. Her almost-fiancé is Arthur Millburn (the excellent Aaron Lazar, making the most of his gentle love ballad), who, in alliance with a local businessman, urges the unemployed workers to take the only jobs on offer: at a new salvage company.
Letting go of the more profitable past proves a bitter pill for the locals, who line up behind the firebrand Jackie White, played with staunch ferocity by the charismatic British actor and singer Jimmy Nail. In one of the musical's rousing anthems, he evokes the town's better days, reminding the pub dwellers that 'we built the greatest shipping tonnage that the world has ever seen, and the only life we've known is in the shipyards.'
Against considerable odds, and for that matter all real-world logic, the townsfolk rally behind a plan to open the shipyards themselves, and set to work building one last ship. What exactly they will do with this vessel - sell it to Carnival Cruises? hop aboard and sail away into some brighter future? - is among the questions the show doesn't quite answer.
But there is plenty to distract us from this quixotic, quasi-symbolic endeavor. In a development that can be seen coming from a few leagues away, we learn Gideon is the biological father of Meg's teenage son, Tom (Mr. Kelly-Sordelet, again), and that Meg still feels a tug of affection for her old flame. In one of the show's prettiest ballads, Meg, played with a tough hide and a sweet soul by the beautiful Ms. Tucker, sings a duet with her younger self in which she confesses she still 'counts the boats returning from the sea.'
Also claiming the town's attention is the decline of the local priest, Father O'Brien (Fred Applegate), who knocks back pints with the best of them, and isn't above colorful profanity. Although Mr. Applegate plays the role with a nicely studied restraint, the character skirts stock stereotype, and his cancer diagnosis strikes a sentimental note that only adds to the busy traffic of the plot.
Interactive Feature: Fall Arts Preview - Times 100While I haven't closely followed his long career as a rock star, I was impressed that Sting's songs for 'The Last Ship' never feel like pop tunes awkwardly shoehorned into a ready-made narrative. The pungent lyrics spring directly from character and situation. (The score includes songs from Sting's concept album of the same name, as well as new compositions and four songs from other Sting albums.) The varied score draws on the antique sounds of sea chanteys, and often has a heavily Celtic sound - with a little Kurt Weill thrown in for good measure.
Lively characterizations from the cast can only go so far to paper over the problem of overpopulation. Gideon, Meg, Arthur, Jackie, young Tom and Father O'Brien all play significant roles in the plot - with the chorus of workers and wives roistering around them - so there isn't sufficient room to explore any of the characters in real depth, with the result that our emotions are only intermittently engaged.
Mr. Esper, as the wayward Gideon, sings with rich feeling, and does his best to keep the conflicts tearing at his character lucid. Mr. Kelly-Sordelet brings a brash vitality to Tom, and Mr. Nail commands attention whenever his stern character steps into one of the smoky spotlights of Christopher Akerlind's lighting design, on David Zinn's imposing metallic set.
Once again, the choreographer Steven Hoggett has provided dances that seem naturally to spring from the sinews of the characters. His heavily weighted, earthbound choreography matches both the varied bodies of the cast and the emotional tone of the show. The movement derives from foot-stomping anger and frustration rather than the ebullience of spirit that usually sends people airborne in musicals.
Airborne is what this musical definitely is not. While it shares a working-class milieu with popular shows like 'Once,' 'Kinky Boots' and 'Billy Elliot,' 'The Last Ship' doesn't aim for the romantic allure or jubilant spirit of those more formulaic shows; it's fundamentally about loss, regret and unhappy or ambiguous endings. Those are all worthy subjects of musical dramatization, as some of Stephen Sondheim's great shows and many an opera have established. But for all the ruminative, haunting beauty of its score, this musical often feels dramatically landlocked - like a ship without a crew.
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