Sail Away, with a script and songs by
Noël Coward, who also directed it, is notable as his first musical for Broadway in more than 20 years, since Set to Music in 1939.
Coward has chosen a shipboard setting, although times have changed since
Cole Porter tried the same thing with Anything Goes back in 1934; these days, people usually travel by airplane, though they still take pleasure cruises, and that's what's depicted in Sail Away, with
Elaine Stritch portraying a cruise director romanced by a younger passenger. Well into her 30s,
Stritch is no ingénue, and she is no one's idea of demure. But that may make her an ideal
Coward heroine. The best of the songs here are not the romantic ballads, but rather the ones that display
Coward's brittle wit, such as "Useful Phrases" (it ridicules books offering translations of common terms for tourists) and the concluding number, "Why Do the Wrong People Travel?," both of which
Stritch nails. Also full of biting humor are the twin songs "The Passenger's Always Right" and "The Customer's Always Right," sung by the same actors, alternately playing ship stewards and street vendors, led by
Charles Braswell, and "Beatnik Love Affair," sung by
Grover Dale. The love songs, in contrast, such as
Stritch's "Something Very Strange" and "Where Shall I Find Him?," just can't compete, which may explain why the show is more amusing than moving.