Politically and morally, the problem is indisputable. The plight of refugees is an eternal crisis that has flared into a present-day emergency, and the millions of people who are displaced from their homes every year deserve empathy.
Music can inspire empathy, as can theater and dance, so the aim of “Message in a Bottle,” which addresses the plight of refugees in a dance narrative set to 27 songs by Sting, is both noble and potentially achievable. On the evidence of rave reviews in London, where the show premiered in 2020, and the cheers of the audience during its local debut at New York City Center, on Wednesday, the production would seem to be a success. But that’s not how it struck me.
The aesthetic problems are less indisputable and more subjective. The trouble is not a lack of well-meaning effort or an absence of skill. The production is conceived, directed and choreographed by Kate Prince in a mélange of hip-hop and contemporary styles, and the dancers in her company, ZooNation, are technically amazing and totally committed. Every few seconds, they flash something to wow you: spinning, flipping, flying.
And despite some of the shoehorning typical of jukebox musicals, the songs have been shaped into a coherent, easy-to-follow story. In an idyllic village, we meet a happy couple and their three children (played by adult dancers). War makes them flee and eventually separates them. Their paths through water crossings and refugee camps are schematically outlined, even color-coded. New recordings of hits from Sting’s solo career and his time with the Police, mostly sung by the star himself, have been ingeniously ordered and altered to serve this tale, and the arrangements by Alex Lacamoire and Martin Terefe cleverly braid the melodies as motifs of character and memory.
But where are we really? Costumes (by Anna Fleischle), sand falling in the set (by Ben Stones), video projections (by Andrzej Goulding) and the sound of “Desert Rose” place the opening vaguely in North Africa. But when the oldest son (Lukas McFarlane, who also serves as associate choreographer) falls in love to “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” the true setting becomes evident: We are in the land of television shows like “So You Think You Can Dance?”
“Message in a Bottle” is a string of those kinds of numbers. If you find the way such programs handle narrative and emotion to be unsubtle and sentimental, “Message in a Bottle” isn’t for you.
The limitations and awkwardness of this approach become especially apparent after war arrives, when men in hoods grope and abduct the young women of the village. The song is “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” about a teacher’s sexual affair with a student. This is disturbing, but not as it’s intended.
One ability these superhero dancers do not possess is naturalistic acting, at least not as directed here. Their mugging drowns the material in schmaltz, gumming up the appeal to empathy. At a more fundamental level, the choreography can’t handle the depth and seriousness of the subject, with the contemporary side falling further short than the hip-hop. While not a total travesty, it consistently trivializes the topic. When characters continually seem to be trying to win a dance competition, can you feel anything for them besides hope that your favorite will prevail?
For those, like me, who know and love these songs but find the treatment off-putting, some perverse fun can be had in guessing which one is coming next. (There’s a list in the program, but that’s cheating.) When McFarlane’s character imagines his wife in a red-light district: Cue “Roxanne.” When she rejects him, is he “So Lonely?” He is.
The problems aside, there’s pleasure to be found in the dancing. The title song is well used as a knockout first act closer, with B-boys expressing the frustration of confinement in lanes of light. Throughout, when full-out motion meshes with big choruses, it’s exciting, and individual performances charm. Gavin Vincent as the father has such delicate B-boy grace that it’s a double pity when his character dies. Deavion Brown, as the younger son, is so fierce and sharp that his swooping love duet with the lyrical Harrison Dowzell to “Shape of My Heart” is all the sweeter. Natasha Gooden, as the daughter, is so forceful and precise that it’s nice to see her find happiness in some absurdly idealized island paradise.
It’s not an aesthetic crime that “Message in the Bottle,” going for uplift, imagines happy endings, even bringing back the dead, maybe as spirits. It finishes with “They Dance Alone” and its invocation of “one day” when the oppressed can sing their freedom and dance. The dancers, freed to look like themselves, make it a joyful moment, but something has been characteristically stripped from the song: its Chilean political context, the details that make it real. It’s a generic end to a generic show.
Through May 12 at New York City Center; nycitycenter.org.
