SWEPT AWAY Broadway Reviews

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"From the chart-topping folk-rock band The Avett Brothers comes “a spellbinding tale” (The Washington Post) of shipwreck, salvation and brotherhood set on the high seas. 

An odyssey of “mythic proportions” (San Francisco Chronicle), SWEPT AWAY features a book by Tony Award winner John Logan (Red, Moulin Rouge! The Musical), direction by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot), and choreography by Tony Award nominee David Neumann (Hadestown) and stars Tony winner John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening), two-time Tony nominee Stark Sands (Kinky Boots), Adrian Blake Enscoe (AppleTV’s Dickinson), and Wayne Duvall (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). 

After sold-out runs from coast to coast, SWEPT AWAY is now on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre."

Opening November 19, 2024

I'm in a gray area with this one. I have not seen it yet but most people I know hated every minute of it. Not sure what to expect from critics, perhaps mixed to negative?

I'm surprised by the lack of fanfare... this opened tonight, yes?

NY Stage Review

SWEPT AWAY: ADRIFT ON A DARK, DARK SEA

By Bob Verini

★★★☆☆ Talent, taste, and Avett Brothers sea-chanties serve a grim morality tale that doesn't quite stay afloat

https://nystagereview.com/2024/11/19/swept-away-adrift-on-a-dark-dark-sea/

 

SWEPT AWAY: A HAUNTING MUSICAL TALE OF SURVIVAL

By Frank Scheck

★★★★☆ John Gallagher Jr. and Stark Sands are among the stars of this musical featuring songs from The Avett Brothers catalogue.

https://nystagereview.com/2024/11/19/swept-away-a-haunting-musical-tale-of-survival/

Updated On: 11/19/24 at 10:56 PM

Deadline is positive

‘Swept Away’ Review: John Gallagher Jr. Steers A Stirring Avett Brothers Seafaring Musical

https://deadline.com/2024/11/swept-away-broadway-review-1236180210/

"As enthralling as it is disquieting, Swept Away, opening tonight on Broadway, is a taut and captivating new folk musical featuring the gorgeous songs of the roots-rock group The Avett Brothers and an impeccable cast headed by John Gallagher Jr. and Stark Sands."

Updated On: 11/19/24 at 11:01 PM

Washington Post is mixed

The Avett Brothers musical gambles on a sinking formula

“Swept Away” sets the band’s folksy sound to a grizzly survival tale. It’s a curious combination with iffy results.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2024/11/19/swept-away-avett-brothers-musical-broadway-review/

"The buoyant, folksy appeal of the Avett Brothers’ music, which includes many songs from “Mignonette” plus a handful more, is better suited to the promise of embarkation than to the dark fate that awaits. A scruffy ensemble crowds the deck for mildly rousing stomp-and-clap numbers (choreographed by David Neumann) that celebrate the camaraderie of seafaring. (The Bushwick-meets-Portland costumes are by Susan Hilferty.) But once the boat goes belly-up (a technical marvel by set designer Rachel Hauck), the vibe mismatch with mid-tempo bluegrass turns nearly comedic.

Songs like the brotherly duet “Murder in the City” have a lovely narrative poetry, but pop conventions — broken-record choruses that repeat but don’t elaborate, the consistency of the band’s overall sound — are a burden onstage. The musical numbers, which tend to stop the action cold, lack variation within and among themselves so that they both blend together and invariably overstay their welcome."

Holdren in Vulture is mixed to negative. Calls the set the production's greatest triumph.

Out to Sea and Back With Swept Away

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-swept-away-broadway-avett-brothers.html

"Despite its creative team’s efforts to lace a capital-T Theme through the work, Swept Away often falls prey to this roteness. Logan, with the support of Scott and Seth Avett and their bandmate Bob Crawford, has chosen “salvation and redemption” as the play’s big idea, but its deployment is telly not showy — we hear a lot about it, but our pulses never really rise with the stakes.

Both story and character issues are to blame. Logan and Mayer are striving to mash up the economical (the show is only 90 minutes) with the epic, but their tale of shipwreck, suffering, and cannibalism stays constrained by its own plot points — it aspires to but never quite touches Melvillian metaphysical grandeur. At the same time, the character who needs redeeming is one tough nut, with such a thick shell that it’s questionable whether there’s anything inside. "

Theatrely is mixed to negative

SWEPT AWAY Is Lost at Sea — Review

https://www.theatrely.com/post/swept-away-is-lost-at-sea-review

"As with Tammy Faye, another new musical this season which today announced its closing, Swept Away a musical cursed by the finality of the Broadway premiere. A few more workshops to iron out a problematic book and it really could work; its elements brought together under a firmer directorial hand. The Avett Brothers’ music, with their specific sound and sense of down-home longing, seem ideal for a theatrical adaptation, but it’s a shame it’s left at sea by a book with no clear navigation, flailing its arms for rescue."

Three stars from TimeOut

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/swept-away-broadway-musical-review-avett-brothers

"Although I admire Swept Away’s sincerity, however, I must admit that I was not ultimately very moved by it. The Avett Brothers’ voice is richly conflicted and specific, but the characters in this show are not; they are generic in their typology, and the story doesn’t quite support the framing of Mate’s deathbed confession and conversion to spreading the truth. Swept Away made me want to listen to more songs by the Avett Brothers, but I wasn’t sold on its larger points about brotherhood. For others, perhaps, the sense of redemption Mate lands on will seem worthier of his grim trip of guilt. "

NY Sun

‘Swept Away’ Offers Assets Rarely Seen in Contemporary Broadway Musicals, a Fresh Story and a Spiritual Journey

Director Michael Mayer, who has reconciled dark subject matter with musical buoyance in hits such as ‘Spring Awakening’ and ‘American Idiot,’ makes this production sing in every respect.

https://www.nysun.com/article/swept-away-offers-assets-rarely-seen-in-contemporary-broadway-musicals-a-fresh-story-and-a-spiritual-journey

 

1) Maybe Happy Ending would like a word, and 2) it’s possible the Longacre’s next show will be The Motive and the Cue.

EDSOSLO858 said: "1)Maybe Happy Endingwould like a word, and 2) it’s possible the Longacre’s next show will beThe Motive and the Cue."

there you go again. ANYTHING is possible, and i surely dont have any reason to think this will be a runaway hit. you make so many silly predictions, of course some will be correct.

but the idea that they are *already* planning to close in a few weeks with rave language from multiple papers is just nonsensical, and your non-committal trumpy "lotta ppl are saying" language is insufferable.

Updated On: 11/19/24 at 11:30 PM

Would someone be so kind as to post a gift link to the NYTimes review?