Shipbuilding in Wallsend

Don't expect to see Sting on stage at the Neil Simon Theatre!

Is there a genre we could call "the working man's musical?"

The Full Monty would fall into this category. Billy Elliot also wore its working class roots with distinction.  Kinky Boots is an exuberant example of this presumptive classification.

The Last Ship, with music and lyrics by Sting and story by Brian Yorkey and John Logan, at the Neil Simon Theatre in an open run, is an illustration of the style gone sadly awry.

Fred Applegate and Jimmy Nail with the cast of The Last Ship.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

With a who-cares plot, choreography (by Steven Hoggett) replaced mostly by stomping, and songs that generally misfire, and seem to be there mostly just for the exposition, The Last Ship is anything but the pride of Wallsend.

Young Gideon (Collin Kelly-Sordelet) sails away from home after his father is injured and before taking on as an apprentice in the shipyards. He wanders on the seas for fifteen years and comes back (played on his return by Michael Esper) too late for his father's funeral.

He has left behind a girl (young Meg played by Dawn Cantwell) to whom he made promises and whom he still seems to love. Meg Dawson (Rachel Tucker playing the adult woman), has a son, Tom (Kelly-Sordelet again), and a new beau, Arthur Millburn (Aaron Lazar). Arthur has run afoul of the townfolks. He is working with the fellow who is taking over the shipyard and transforming it into a new industrial site.

Lead by Jackie White (Jimmy Nail), a foreman at the works before they closed, the weilders refuse to sign on for new jobs and plan to occupy the yards and yes, build The Last Ship.

Collin Kelly-Sordelet as Tom Dawson in a scene from The Last Ship.
Photo by Matthew Murphy.

In the interests of being completely honest with our readers, from the first tune "Island of Souls," I yearned for intermission. By "We've Got Now't Else," the third song from the end of Act I, my passion for escape rivalled young Gideon's. As a born romantic, "What Say You Meg," a quasi-lovesong before the break, was moderately effective.

The minimalist sets by David Zinn are like so much else on the stage of The Last Ship, generically workmanlike. Among the cast, Fred Applegate as Father O'Brien, generic Irish priest with the soul of a rebel, and Collin Kelly-Sordelet as the wise fifteen year old Tom Dawson are standouts. Aaron Lazar is a likeable hero although my suspicion is I was routing for the wrong lover.

For more information about The Last Ship, or to purchase tickets, please visit The Last Ship,

Open the Shipping Lanes, "The Boat Factory" is in Town

Dan Gordon, who also wrote the play, and Michael Condron in "The Boat Factory," part of Brits Off Broadway
at 59E59 Theaters.  Photo by Carol Rosegg

Folks once travelled by ship across the seas like we hope a plane. Ocean liners sailed from the shipyards of Belfast as early as the late 1800s. Smaller boats were built in 1663 to ply the rivers before the harbor was dug out to accommodate factories like Harland & Wolff, which launched, among many other ships, the RMS Titanic in 1911.

Michael Condron and Dan Gordon in "The Boat Factory," part of Brits Off Broadway at 59E59 Theaters.
 Photo by Carol Rosegg

A history of the Belfast shipbuilding industry in two acts by Dan Gordon, "The Boat Factory," at 59E59 Theaters through June 30, celebrates great shipyards of the Northern Ireland town and the men who worked in them.

Michael Condron as Geordie and Dan Gordon as Davy in "The Boat Factory," part of Brits Off Broadway
at 59E59 Theaters.  Photo by Carol Rosegg

In Act 1, the actors deliver a lecture on the heritage of shipbuilding in Belfast. The stories they tell are novel, comic, interesting and rambling. Davy Gordon [Dan Gordon] and Geordie [Michael Condron] By Act 2, Davy Gordon [Dan Gordon] and Geordie [Michael Condron] act out a more conventional give and take about life in the great warehouses in which "dreams n the Island-- Queen's Island-- building ships building dreams...." With its sprawling presentation, and didactic content, "The Boat Factory" may not be to everyone's liking. By the time you get to the second act, you may be overwhelmed by the syncopation of information in Davy and Geordie's banter.

Men died building ships in the vast factories that sprang up between the Victoria and Musgra e Channels on
Queen's Island, Belfast. "The Boat Factory" is a tribute to them and the expansive industry they represented.

"We built them to last -- even Titanic," Geordie says. "She was alright when she left us, eh?," Davy says.

For more information about "The Boat Factory," visit www.59e59.org.