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ACT ONE
1, 2 and 3 lay the foundations for the show; then there is a sequence of songs suggesting hazards that might have made the Crew vanish: 4 suggests highly contagious disease; 5 and 6 suggest addiction to drink; 7 and 8 deal with food-shortage; 9 and 10 give two versions of attempts to interfere with the climate; 11 and 12 deal with greed for money; 13 is a half-time summary. |
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1 |
Plain Sailing (sung on quay)
Tourists set the scene, celebrating the convenience and safety of ocean travel. Matilda briefly curses Mary Celeste, of which her son was the Captain. |
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2 |
Market The Myth (on quay and deck)
Barkers sell the Tourists Mary Celeste souvenir photographs and ballads. Tourists sight-read the Ballad of 'Màrie Celeste' and Crew's Ghosts, still haunting the ship, join in. |
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3 |
Court Now Sitting (sung on quay)
The Attorney says the Ballad is inaccurate; the Tourists should wait for his formal verdict in the Mary Celeste salvage case at the end of the day. Deveau and Wright, sailors from the ship Dei Gratia, say that they should be believed, as they were the ones who found Mary Celeste adrift. |
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4 |
No Survivors (sung on deck)
Deveau and Wright demonstrate how they boarded the derelict vessel. They think it was disease that did away with the Crew; a chorus of Germs celebrates bacteria's superiority over man. |
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5 |
Did Someone Say 'Rum'? (sung on quay)
A Women's Temperance League blames alcohol for the loss of the Crew and damage to Mary Celeste's deck-rail; the vessel's co-Owners challenge them to explain how this could have happened. |
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6 |
Getting To The Bottom (sung on deck)
Captain Briggs tells off the drunken Crew, but a plan to make them demonstrate who's sober by walking along the deck-rail misfires: everyone falls overboard. |
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7 |
Story Of The Year (sung on quay)
A Journalist tries to persuade his Editor to print the Mary Celeste story, but the Proprietor (in London) thinks it's too tame. He tells the Journalist to make up something more sensational, maybe about a cannibal cook ... |
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8 |
Our Favourite Destination (sung on deck)
The Crew are proud of their Cook until she proposes to feed only the Captain's family and herself: she suggests that the ordinary sailors can either eat each other, or try their luck escaping in the long boat. |
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9 |
Let Homer Point The Way (sung on quay)
The archæologist Schliemann has located ancient Troy; can he solve this riddle too? He suggests that Mary Celeste is another Trojan Horse, and hints that Homer's Iliad will turn out to hold the key. |
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10 |
Doldrum Beat (sung on deck)
Becalmed, the rapping Crew vainly attempt to change the weather with music and dance; Briggs tries a Homeric plan: like Agamemnon he sacrifices his daughter to raise a wind: the typhoon blasts them into the water. |
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11 |
A Modern Miracle (sung on quay)
A Missionary claims that Mary Celeste survived owing to her 'Christian' name, and her co-Owners reassure themselves that God looked after their property. It's the ships' Figureheads who notice that nobody cares about the people who were lost. |
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12 |
When My Ship Comes In (sung on deck)
Briggs is taunted by his more ambitious Wife, and poverty-stricken Crew, into abandoning ship in mid-Atlantic, so that Dei Gratia, their partner-in-crime, can find the empty ship and claim the salvage money on his behalf. |
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13 |
A World Away (sung on quay)
Edward Lear, painting on the quay, is asked to entertain Briggs's little son Arthur, who is in a world of his own. Lear shows that all the riddle-solvers are in worlds of their own, seeing Mary Celeste only in the light of their own preoccupations. |
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A C T T W O
14 is a comic warm-up; 15 and 16 look at man's mistreatment of Nature; 17 looks seriously at the human loss of the Mary Celeste story; 18 and 19 suggest mumbo-jumbo as a hazard; 20 and 21 propose violence; 22 and 23 propose explosion; 24 shows the parallel between the Victorian sailing-hazards and current planetary worries; 25 is the upbeat conclusion, in which we undertake to stamp these hazards out. |
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14 |
Sailors' Porn-Hype (sung on quay)
Naval Ratings leeringly watch Harbour-girls dance a hornpipe; the Girls reject them, yet they encourage a Rich Captain. |
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15 |
A Toast To Mother Nature (sung on quay)
A Botanist wants to get a new orchid named after himself; an ambitious Doctor regrets that so few un-named species remain, and his Wife suggests they breed some new ones; local Children warn against this. |
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16 |
Revenge Of The Kraken (on deck and quay)
The Crew, scared by a storm, sing a hymn celebrating man's domination over the natural world; a rising sea-monster sweeps them from the deck. |
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17 |
Hope Springs Eternal (sung on quay)
Bereaved women (Matilda, Captain's mother; Priscilla, Mate's sister; Agnes, Helmsman's fiancée) sing out passionately against men who are turning their private tragedy into a public entertainment. |
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18 |
Beyond The Veil (sung on quay)
A waitress, Charlotte Anne, offers to hold a séance and put the mourners in touch with the departed Crew; the Missionary heaps scorn on mumbo-jumbo. |
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19 |
Remote Control (on deck and quay)
From the afterlife, the Crew explain how Atlantis rose from the waves and how their Guardian Angel explained destiny to them: we are urged to accept whatever the future brings without worrying about it. |
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20 |
One Man's Mate ... (sung on quay)
Journalist is still being refused space by his Editor; can Charlotte Anne help him to find a love-interest angle on the Mary Celeste story? |
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21 |
Crime Of Passion (sung on deck)
Second Mate is besotted with the Captain's wife and leads the Crew to mutiny; murder follows, and it turns out that Sarah Briggs is more than a match for any of them. |
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22 |
Dockers Of The Rock (sung on quay)
Mary Celeste was carrying a dangerously volatile cargo, say the Dockers, delighted that this commonsense solution to the mystery is evident only to working men. |
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23 |
Daddy Knows Best (on deck and quay)
Worries about the smell and state of the cargo keep Sophia awake; Sarah lulls her into believing Briggs has everything under control, even as they go down in the lifeboat, pulled under by a 'lifeline' fastened to the potentially explosive Mary Celeste. |
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24 |
No-one's Ark (sung on quay)
Attorney suggests re-enacting the fatal voyage; the Crowd reveal to ten (planted) 'volunteers' from the Audience that the whole show has been performed by ghosts, who have come back to use Mary Celeste as a model for our global ship, whose crew could be wiped out by the very hazards the show explores. This is the real solution to the riddle! |
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25 |
Time To Turn The Tables (sung on quay)
The Company undertake to stamp out the hazardous practices discussed above, to ensure that life on earth will continue. |