BWW Reviews: Sting's THE LAST SHIP an Old-Fashioned, Good-Hearted Musical Drama

Composer/lyricist Sting may be a theatre novice, but he has teamed up with quite an accomplished group for his debut musical, The Last Ship. The book is by John Logan, who won the Best Play Tony Award for Red, and Brian Yorkey, Tony and a Pulitzer winner for his work on Next To Normal. Joe Montello is a highly regarded director of both musicals and straight drama, especially adept at bringing wide-scope stage pictures to life.

The Last Ship has its stumbling points, but the sincerity and warmth with which their tale of a community of laborers' fight for one last hurrah before their shipyard is closed forever is frequently charming, sweetly romantic and funny, and at times quite enchanting. Sting has mentioned that he's a fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it certainly shows in this old-fashioned, good-hearted evening.

The original story is set in Sting's childhood home of Wallsend, in northeast England. It's a town where generations of men have spent their lives working in the shipyard, but foreign competition has now left them unemployed. Local boy Arthur (Aaron Lazar), a former shipbuilder, now has a management position with the corporation that has bought the yard and is offering the men less-specialized positions that, admittedly, will pay lower wages than their previous ones.

Entering the picture is Gideon (Michael Esper), who ran away from Wallsend 15 years ago to escape his abusive father, promising his girlfriend Meg (Rachel Tucker) that he'd return.

Tired of waiting, Meg is in a relationship with Arthur, who has assumed the role of father to her 15-year-old son, Tom (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), but she's yet to accept any of his marriage proposals, making Gideon think she still yearns for him the way he does for her.

With the help of the rascally Father O'Brien's (Fred Applegate) misappropriated church funds, the shipworkers hop the yard's high fence, locked by the new owners, and, in a declaration of pride and protest, start building their last ship.

Lesser authors would have made it easy to sympathize with Gideon and the local men by making Arthur a greedy villain, but the strength of The Last Ship is that its conflicts are between good, imperfect people. Arthur is a devoted romantic partner who tries to be a good role model for Tom and honestly believes he's working in the best interest of his community. Gideon is trying to make up for the impulsive irresponsibility of his youth and Meg is torn between the mature love she receives from Arthur and the memory of the exciting passion she once shared with Gideon. Tom relies on Arthur's steady parental hand, but he's drawn to the adventurous spirit of his newly-found biological father.

Sting's score, greatly enhanced by Rob Mathes' authoritative orchestrations, draws heavily on tuneful Celtic melodies and hearty songs of the sea, but while his ballads are fine individually, they tend to blend together indistinguishably as a score. Esper and Tucker are both fine, but the generic lyrics of their intimate moments give them little more than romantic clichés to work with. (Tucker gets a nice belty number about irresponsible men, but Esper's second act charm song where Gideon tries bonding with his son by teaching him to dance, comes off too much like a contrived attempt to make the audience like him.) Lazar stands out with his beautiful high baritone and noble, sympathetic performance in the smaller role.

The supporting character actors fare much better when the score switches to rousing ensemble numbers and character-driven dramatics. Applegate's charismatic turn as the one-of-the-guys priest overcomes the overly familiar aspects of the character's story. Jimmy Nail is the terrific burning belly of the evening as the shipyard foreman and Sally Ann Triplett, as his wife, helps raise the roof with the second act's rowdy Irish wake number.

Montello and designers David Zinn (sets and costumes) and Christopher Akerlind (lights) create some striking visual moments and choreographer Steven Hoggett's choreography effectively grows out of natural movement rather than dancing.

As first musicals go, The Last Ship is an impressive effort that shows a greater understanding of musical theatre than many pop stars offer with their Broadway debuts. I'm looking forward to Sting's sophomore musical.

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