SWEPT AWAY last night
Posted by: NeoAdamite 04:06 pm EST 12/09/24

The story was told clearly, the cast is excellent, and I wasn't bored; but the combination of naturalistic staging with the simple folk score was never going to work. I suspect that what one envisioned while listening to the album was more effective than anything one could realistically portray on a stage; and the lack of variety in the music kept it that way. Almost every song was entirely diatonic ("only white notes") which is a huge red flag - it can be tolerable in a concert but not in a musical.

This started with a very familiar trope ("Lost at Sea") and did nothing special with it. Every lifeboat story hinges on which characters will make what sacrifice, and the only surprises here were [1] when Gallagher's character revealed his backstory, and [2] the moment of sacrifice.

When LIFE OF PI built on the "lifeboat" idea, it added crucial layers of metaphor and ambiguity. Here, with a very few exceptions, there was no subtext at all in the script or the lyrics - everything interesting came from the actors, director, and staging. The only humor was created by Gallagher, who took flat dialogue straight out of a penny dreadful and made it fun with his delivery.
Link The "Lost at Sea" trope
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