Posted: Mark Kennedy, AP Drama Writer on 10/26/2014 08:09:46 PM CDT
NEW YORK (AP) — You may be tempted upon leaving Sting’s Broadway musical “The Last Ship” to head straight to a pub to drain a pint and sing some sea shanties. Or maybe go weld something. Or do both.
Such are the foot-stomping, testosterone-filled feelings that emerge from the Neil Simon Theatre, where a blast of British working class camaraderie among steel workers has docked during these times when we only construct things from Ikea.
“The Last Ship” has some powerful performances, some outstanding songs, real heart and a creative team that uses every inch of the stage in thrilling ways. Perhaps there’s a bit of bloat and far too many sea references, but when it works, it does so brilliantly.
The show is Sting’s semi-autobiographical story about a prodigal son who returns to his northern England shipbuilding town to reclaim the girl — and a son — he abandoned when he fled 15 years before. The shipyard, meanwhile, is closing and the workers are divided over the future. The show is about loss and letting go.
Michael Esper (“American Idiot”) plays the hero, somehow making a man potentially unlikable into someone melancholy and sick at heart. Rachel Tucker is fiery and strong and superb as his love interest, both protective and vibrant. Jimmy Nail is a great as the softhearted foreman with a gruff exterior, and Fred Applegate is irrepressibly good as a profane priest.
Steven Hoggett’s special brand of choreography — unexpected dancers swaying in unison, slo-mo kicks — is particularly effective here. As he’s done in “Once,” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” he turns the un-lithe and the downright rotund into lighter-than-air expressions of dreamlike movement.
The project began as a CD and PBS concert special before it was turned into a stage version. Sting drew on his childhood, growing up in Newcastle’s Wallsend neighborhood, near the Swan Hunter shipyards. David Zinn’s sets are not surprisingly all about steel — girders and ladders and gates and rust-stained hulls. There’s even rain and acetylene torches.
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What’s remarkable is the old tunes fit flawlessly, proof Sting’s songs have always been built of strong stuff and often reached back to his hometown. The writers also have plundered imagery from Sting’s old lyrics to build their story, particularly “Island of Souls.”
Broadway has something of a crush with the Irish and English right now. There’s “Once” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and “Matilda” and “Kinky Boots.” Hopefully there’s room for another, an unlikely moving musical about shipbuilders. We’ll raise a pint to that.