Rachel Tucker and Michael Esper in The Last Ship at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York. Picture: Joan Marcus
The Last Ship continues at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York.
The shipyard workers in the north east English town of Wallsend are a proud lot. And they’re stubborn, too, as portrayed in The Last Ship, the problematic new Broadway musical buoyed with a glorious score by rock star Sting.
The town’s shipyard has been closed in the face of cheaper competition from Asia, and the facility is being taken over by an industrial salvage company, offering the workers a new chance to make a living. But, no, they reject such jobs. All they want to do is build ships, like their fathers and grandfathers before them. So, prompted by Father Jim, the town’s rough-hewn but saintly priest, they forcibly take over the shipyard and build one last ship.
Father Jim dips into his church’s building fund to finance the effort. He’s also suffering a fatal illness; so, his death provides a rational for the ship: to carry out his desire to be buried at sea.
I don’t know if this story is straining your credulity, but I found it hard to take. And the book by John Logan and Brian Yorkey is further cluttered by the travails of the central character, Gideon Fletcher. Gideon left Wallsend as a teenager to become a merchant seaman, leaving behind an abusive father, a town he deeply hated and a girlfriend, Meg, who, unknown to him, was pregnant. Fifteen years later, Gideon’s father has died, and he returns to sell the family house and get out of town quickly. But when he discovers he has a son, he quickly switches gears and becomes one of the leaders of the workers’ plan to build that one last ship. (By now, I suspect, you know where the show gets its title.) He also, of course, still has a thing for Meg, but she is in a long-term relationship with Arthur, a one-time shipbuilder who has betrayed his heritage by becoming a manager for the salvage company. And boy, do the shipyard workers hate Arthur!
If this fictional narrative, inspired by Sting’s own boyhood in Wallsend, were presented as a parable or fable about how pride in work and heritage can elevate the human soul – or something like that – it might make sense. But the gritty, realistic ambience of the show asks us to take the story on face value, and the characters seem to be mere pawns of the book-writers, their motivations pasted together to carry out the jerrybuilt plot. And that plot keeps acting as an irritating distraction from what otherwise is an inspired piece of musical theatre.
First off, there is Sting’s masterful music, with its rousing sea chanties and drinking songs (a lot of the proceedings take place in the town pub), affecting love ballads, blissful similes of folk tunes and book songs that resonate with the best qualities of classic Broadway music. They’re rendered vividly in the orchestrations and arrangements by music director Rob Mathes. The staging of director Joe Mantello, with a great assist from David Zinn’s evocative set designs, has a cinematic fluidity, while Steven Hoggett’s choreography sets the theatre vibrating with foot-stomping machismo – and at one point, with sparking welding machines.
While faced with the impossible task of lending credibility to the forced storytelling, the cast can hardly be bettered. I eventually just settled back to be happily impressed with their talents and dedication on a number-to-number basis. The company is a crafty mix of players representing an impressive range of both UK and New York credits. From the New York side, there is Michael Esper, with his own appealing persona breaking through the rather dour concoction that is Gideon Fletcher; Fred Applegate exuding an aura of freshness with the clichéd image of the ever-tippling, foul-mouthed Father Jim, and Aaron Lazar gaining a measure of sympathy for the traitor Arthur. There’s also an impressive Broadway debut by local fellow Collin Kelly-Sordelet the younger version of Gideon and his son, Tom.
On the UK side, Jimmy Nail brings satisfying authenticity and gravitas to the role of Jackie White, another leader of the workers; Sally Ann Triplett is vigorous and commanding as his pub-keeping wife, and Rachel Tucker imbues the conflicted Meg with spirit and vulnerability.
Call it a coup de théâtre, but The Last Ship, despite a book that can’t hold water, is a vessel worth sailing.
Ron Cohen
Readers may also be interested in:
On the Town – Lyric Theatre, New York – Review
Lennon: Through a Glass Onion – Union Square Theatre, New York – Review
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