A New Life

Few artists get things right on their first try. Writers rewrite, artists repaint, sculptors reshape, and composers keep tinkering with sounds and beats until they're satisfied.

Even the greats have doubts and regrets. Now that Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Robbins are dead, the only surviving member of the creative team behind 1957's West Side Story (Stephen Sondheim) gave his blessing to the team working on the latest revival to drop "I Feel Pretty" from the score and eliminate the "Somewhere" ballet.

Second Life is not just a virtual world for role-playing online gamers. A second life is what people who have served time in prison are sometimes granted. A second life is what some people achieve after a long-term relationship collapses. A second life is what many strive for when they fail in their professional career (or discover that they simply can't live up to their parents' dreams). A second life offers a chance to improve on the past.


Trying to connect the dots between seemingly random thoughts is one of my favorite pastimes when riding buses, trains, or awakening from a dream cycle. Sometimes words and songs flit through my mind in ways that point me to an idea I can use; at other times they annoy the hell out of me until I spot their relevance to each other.

Late in 1981, during a trip to New York, I attended a preview performance of Merrily We Roll Along, the legendary musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth that became a notorious flop. Premiering just two years after Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the show racked up 52 previews and 16 performances, marking the end of Sondheim's artistic partnership with director Hal Prince.

Since then, Merrily We Roll Along has achieved cult status as the Sondheim musical everyone and their mother tried to fix. The original Broadway cast recording (first released in 1982) has been followed by recordings of a 1993 cast in Leicester, England, the 1994 York Theatre Company's revival, and the 2012 Encores! revival (which was released as a two-CD set). In October 2016, a documentary entitled Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened directed by a member of the original Broadway cast (Lonny Price) premiered at the New York Film Festival.


Curiously, 33 years after Merrily We Roll Along bombed on Broadway, another musical premiered which had a disappointing run of only 105 performances. With music and lyrics by Sting, The Last Ship had been warmly received during a series of October 2013 concerts at the Public Theatre. A video recording was subsequently broadcast over the PBS network as part of its Great Performances series.


What connects these two musicals?

• Both received their Broadway premieres at the Neil Simon Theatre.
• Both were nominated for (but did not win) the Tony Award for Best Original Score.
• Both have undergone extensive revisions since their original Broadway runs.

Gideon Fletcher (Oliver Savile) and Jackie White (Sting) say
farewell in The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

While Billy Elliot: The Musical is set against the background of Thatcherism and its devastating effect on Great Britain's miners, The Last Ship focuses on how England's great history of shipbuilding also fell victim to the leadership of the nation's Iron Lady. There is, of course, another connection that struck me. As any fan of maritime history knows, the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast is where the White Star Line's three sister ships (RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic, and RMS Britannic) were built.


Although I saw the first and numerous subsequent versions of Merrily We Roll Along, when The Last Ship docked at the Golden Gate Theatre here in San Francisco I had a chance to experience the revised version of Sting's musical. How so? In September of 2017, The Last Ship was performed in Finnish in the shipbuilding city of Turku, Finland. The following year, the musical toured to cities in the United Kingdom and Ireland before a Toronto run in early 2019. The current tour brings The Last Ship to audiences in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, and Detroit.

Jackie White (Sting) is the shipbuilders' foreman in
The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

Directed by Lorne Campbell, the show's original book (by John Logan and Brian Yorkey) has been replaced by a new version written by its director. With costumes by Molly Einchcomb, and lighting by Matt Daw, this touring version is designed by 59 Productions -- which has done a spectacular job of integrating video, projections, and stage action into a multimedia experience that takes on a life and vitality all its own.

Sting appears as Jackie White with the company of
The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

The story takes place in 1986, when the demise of the shipbuilding industry in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear resulted in the the closure of the town's Swan Hunter shipyard. The production's impressive sound design by Sebastian Frost takes Sting's music (which sounds like a folk opera in the above video) and pumps it up to a level that makes the angry shipbuilders and eight instrumentalists sound as if they are making music on steroids.

The all-British case is a tightly-knit ensemble that includes Annie Grace as Baroness Tynedale (a Margaret Thatcher look-alike), Joseph Peacock as Young Gideon, Jade Sophia Vertannes as Young Meg, Sean Kearns doing triple duty as the gruff businessman Freddy Newlands, Old Joe Fletcher, and a Ferryman, and Matt Corner who delivers a tense, combative performance as the town drunk, Davey Harrison.

Peggy White (Jackie Morrison) and her husband Jackie (Sting)
in a scene from The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

Other supporting roles are taken on by Marc Akinfolarin as the shipyard's resident intellectual, Joe Caffrey as Billy Thompson (one of its politically committed laborers), Hannah Richardson as Cathleen Fleming, Orla Gormley as Mrs. Dees, Oliver Kearney as Kev Dickinson, and David Muscat as Thomas Ashburner.

Meg Dawson (Frances McNamee) and Gideon Fletcher (Oliver Savile)
in a scene from The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

The core of the show revolves around a troubled love story between Gideon Fletcher (Oliver Savile), who ran away to sea for 17 years in order to avoid working in the shipyard, and his teenage girlfriend, Meg Dawson (Frances McNamee), who he left behind without knowing she was pregnant with their daughter, Ellen (Sophie Reid). Composer-lyricist Sting appears as Jackie White, the shipyard's beloved foreman who receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Following Jackie's death, his wife (Jackie Morrison) convinces the local women that it's up to them to save their men, their community, and the shipyard which has defined all of their lives.

Peggy White (Jackie Morrison) galvanizes the shipbuilders
in a scene from The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

The Last Ship turned out to be a much more powerful dramatic experience than I had anticipated. Lorne Campbell's direction glows with genuine theatrical power while Sting's score has a distinct (and nearly operatic) voice. During some of its more wistful moments ("When The Pugilist Learned to Dance," "So To Speak," "What Say You, Meg?" and "When We Danced"), I found myself haunted by memories of Lionel Bart's score for his 1964 musical about dockworkers and prostitutes in Liverpool (Maggie May)


There is one big problem with the current production: the cast's Geordie accents coupled with the beefed-up sound design often make the text difficult to understand. However, considering how much choral music is in Sting's score (and the sheer power of the show's storytelling techniques) I'd hazard a guess that The Last Ship has one more sea to conquer. Now that Supertitles are commonplace in many theatres, I think Sting's opus could find a warm welcome in regional opera houses throughout Europe and North America.

Ellen Dawson (Sophie Reid) has dreams of becoming a
musician in The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

For those anticipating a major blowout performance by Sting, it should be noted that Jackie White is a secondary character in the story. The strongest musical demands fall on Oliver Savile (whose sweet tenor voice adds great depth to the adult Gideon Fletcher) and Frances McNamee, whose pent-up fury at Gideon is unleashed in songs like "If You Ever See Me Talking To A Sailor" and "August Winds."

Meg Dawson (Frances McNamee) and the women's
chorus of The Last Ship (Photo by: Matthew Murphy)

Bottom line? In its revised form, The Last Ship is a major piece of art which, to my mind, is much more impressive and musically viable than Hamilton. Performances of The Last Ship continue through March 22 at the Golden Gate Theatre (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer: