Swept Away! at Berkeley Rep Peet's Theatre, February 23, 2022

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents Swept Away!, featuring music and lyrics by the Avett Brothers, book by John Logan
Peet's Theatre
2025 Addison St, Berkeley, CA 94704-1103 USA
7:00 PM, Wednesday, February 23, 2022

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promo poster (2022)

pre-production promo poster (2020)

[6:57 PM] {We take our seats in the crowded theatre.}
{A curtain hides the back half of the stage. In front of the curtain, a bandaged man lies unmoving on a hospital bed.}
{It's apparent that he's breathing, but he lies there, asleep or completely indifferent to his circumstances.}
{We wait awhile for stragglers…}
[7:08 PM] {lights down, the music begins… Scene 1: the consumption ward at a hospital}

1. [7:08 PM] {the Mate begins to tell his story}
   {flashback more than a few years, to the ship,
2. [7:11 PM] Go to Sleep (core four)
3. [7:15 PM] Hard Worker (Mate & company)
4. [7:18 PM] Nothing Short of Thankful (brothers)
5. [7:24 PM] Hard Worker (reprise)
6. [7:27 PM] Swept Away (LB & Mate)
7. [7:32 PM] Lord Lay Your Hand On My Shoulder (Big Brother)
8. [7:35 PM] Ain't No Man (Mate)
9. [7:38 PM] May It Last (Captain)
10. [7:45 PM] Murder in the City (Little Brother)
    {Storm & shipwreck … lights out … in the lifeboat}
11. [7:48 PM] Complainte d'un Matelot Mourant
12. [7:56 PM] A Gift for Melody Anne (Little Brother)
    {the core four relate their last letters}
13. [8:02 PM] Through My Prayers (core four)
14. [8:09 PM] Satan Pulls the Strings (Mate)
15. [8:20 PM] No Hard Feelings (brothers)
16. [8:30 PM] Once and Future Carpenter (Mate)
    [8:34 PM] {show ends; bows from the performers, then all run off after a minute or so and the audience slowly files out of the theatre}

• Wayne Duvall: Captain;
• Adrian Blake Enscoe: Little Brother;
• John Gallagher, Jr.: Mate;
• Stark Sands: Big Brother.

• Taurean Everett: ensemble; dance captain;
• Cameron Johnson: ensemble; understudy for Big Brother & Little Brother;
• Brandon Kalm: understudy for Big Brother and Little Brother;
• Robert Pendilla: swing;
• Ben Toomer: swing;
• Vishal Vaidya: ensemble; understudy for Mate;
• Ryan Watkinson: understudy for Mate & Captain;
• Jacob Keith Watson: ensemble; understudy for Captain;

• Stephen Danksa: acoustic guitar;
• Daniel Fabricant: contrabass, bass;
• Joshua Mikus-Mahoney: cello;
• Charith Premawardhana: violin;
• Lane Sanders: drums;
• Burke Trieschmann: guitar, banjo.

• the Avett Brothers: music and lyrics;
• Kai Harada: sound design;
• John Logan: book;
• Michael Mayer: director;
• Chris Miller & Brian Usifer: music arrangements & orchestration;
• David Neumann: choreography;
• Julie Wolf and Sean Kana: music direction;
• many others listed in the digital program!

Tonight's show was darn good. For the most part, the time went by faster than I expected: there wasn't much in the way of fluff in this production. No tangents just to pack in a musical number or two while telling someone's back story. Just follow the story-teller's arrow speeding straight for the bulls-eye at the end of the course.

Although rather brief (mind that arrow!), the ensemble portion of the show was really well done: with good songs, great choreography, and fine acting from both the principals and the company. It's the mark of a good show when you look around and everyone onstage is doing something interesting enough to pay attention to – which is impossible, unless you're an eight-eyed spider!

I'm not sure whether the sound design and electronic (?) or pre-recorded (?) elements of the show should be credited to Miller & Usifer or someone else. My naive thought it that those would have come from a keyboard player, but it could just as easily be someone hitting triggers of some sort on a laptop. Anyways, NONE of the musical performers were visible to us at any time, nor did they come forward at the end of the show. Heck, for all I know, the whole darn thing could have been done by playback from a pre-recorded soundtrack that the actors managed to sync themselves to. It might take some of the magic away to know how that part of the show was done, but I'm curious…

Uh so, should you go? If you like the old-timey music of the Avett Brothers, then HELL YEAH! Don't like music-based theatre? You'll want to skip it. This one's not ALL music, but the show wouldn't really exist without the songs that propel the story along, and you need to be able to parse the lyrics on the fly to follow the story. If you don't care about the music, but you like live theatre, well, uh, yup, you'll probably like this one: I haven't really seen anything like it before (novelty is a good thing, right?). I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up on Broadway in the near future.

Program Notes.

Broadway World posted a terrific promo article of the show, teasing a setlist (transcribed above) and offering many excellent pictures.

Playright John Logan and actor John Gallagher talk about the show in this 45-minute podcast.

Charles Lewis posted a review of the play at 48hills. Does he give things away? A little bit. But if you know the story of the Mignonette (the true story that the Avett Brothers used as the basis for their album of the same name, now somewhat adapted into this show), there's not much to hide. Want to read about that? Try this article from 2017!.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!