Ross Zentner
Seth K. Hale, left, and Jennifer Vosters in the Forward Theater production 'Steady She Goes.'
Seth K. Hale, left, and Jennifer Vosters in the Forward Theater production 'Steady She Goes.'
History often fails to celebrate extraordinary women unless circumstances force them into view. In Steady She Goes, playwright Erica Berman turns that statement into an absorbing theatrical question: What happens when a woman most capable of leading has been standing nearby all along, overlooked because society cannot imagine leadership taking an unfamiliar form?
Forward Theater Company opens its 18th season with the world premiere of Berman’s play, directed by Brian Cowing and presented as part of World Premiere Wisconsin. Running through Sept. 27 at the Overture Center Playhouse, Steady She Goes dramatizes the remarkable true story of Mary Ann Brown Patten.
In 1856, Mary took command of the clipper ship Neptune’s Car after the captain, her husband Joshua Adams Patten, became gravely ill during a voyage around Cape Horn. Only 19 years old and pregnant with her first child, Mary confronts dangerous seas, severe weather, a threatened mutiny, and a crew divided by differences in experience, loyalty and ambition. Amidst it all, she must establish her authority and navigate the ship safely to San Francisco.
Berman’s play does more than dramatize a lost chapter of maritime history. It asks audiences to reconsider how history is recorded, whose abilities receive recognition, and why women are so often celebrated as exceptional only after society has refused to recognize them as capable.
Director Brian Cowing captures this idea in his program note, observing that Mary “does not suddenly become brave or brilliant” during the crisis. Those qualities were already present. Jennifer Vosters portrays Mary with a compelling combination of intelligence, determination and restraint. Mary understands the ship because she has been paying attention. Her ascent to command feels less like a transformation than public recognition of years of private preparation and observation as first the daughter of a seaman and then the wife of one. Vosters makes competence dramatic, revealing the concentration and moral clarity required to lead when failure could mean death.
Andreas Transø is a standout as Hare, the ship’s second-in-command. Transø’s stage presence and musicality help anchor the production. Hare’s loyalty grows through careful observation and an increasing trust in Mary’s knowledge; he becomes an essential ally aboard the ship. Supporting her requires him to challenge deeply rooted expectations about who has the right to command a ship.
Seth K. Hale offers a poignantly tender portrayal of Joshua, while the surrounding ensemble gives Mary’s struggle its necessary tension. Matt Daniels plays Keeler, the production’s calculating villain. Andrew Linden portrays Peter, an inexperienced greenhorn, and Maya Danks plays Tommy, a naive pollywog learning the customs and dangers of life at sea. Under Cowing’s direction, the characters function as individuals and as interconnected parts of the ship’s precarious social order. Their competing loyalties, fears and ambitions create an environment in which the ocean is not the only danger.
Berman is particularly attentive to the ways prejudice disguises itself as practicality. Objections to Mary’s authority are framed as concerns about tradition, maritime procedure, and the crew’s safety. Beneath those arguments, however, is a refusal to accept leadership from someone who does not resemble the captains the sailors have known.
The play’s historical setting invites an uncomfortable contemporary question: Who is still required to demonstrate extraordinary competence before receiving ordinary trust?
The production’s classic sea shanties sometimes deepen this examination, although some songs redirect momentum away from the central narrative. Featuring original arrangements by Scott McKenna Campbell and musical direction by Sam Frank-Taylor, the shanties are consistently lively and enjoyable, even when their dramatic purpose is less clear.
Historically, sea shanties coordinated physical labor, allowing sailors to pull ropes, raise sails, and complete demanding tasks according to a shared rhythm. In Steady She Goes, that tradition becomes a metaphor for collective life aboard the ship. Survival depends upon cooperation, yet cooperation becomes difficult when the crew cannot agree whose voice should establish the rhythm. There were some cool moments in the play where the person starting the call-and-response shifted, finally having Mary start it at the end of the play to show that she had won command of the ship at last. At its best, the music resembles a conversation between authority and community. One voice offers a call, and the group decides how, or whether, to respond.
Jason Fassl’s scenic and lighting design is visually striking, while James Uphoff’s sound design evokes the vastness and instability of the ocean within the intimacy of the Playhouse. Shelley Cornia’s costumes are more difficult to interpret. Keeler’s top hat and Tommy’s slouchy beanie create distinctive silhouettes, but their connections to the historical world and the characters’ positions aboard the ship weren’t clear to me — Keeler bore a striking resemblance to Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York and Tommy had the look of X Games skater Brighton Zeuner.
Steady She Goes occasionally bends under the weight of the history it wants to honor. Some passages explain maritime customs while developing characters and advancing the crisis, which can slow the dramatic momentum. The production is strongest when historical explanation gives way to human interaction: a command is challenged, a skill is unexpectedly revealed, or a familiar relationship is altered by necessity. And it wisely avoids suggesting that systems of exclusion can be overcome through individual determination alone.
The play reminds us that leadership does not begin with recognition. Sometimes it has been there all along, reading the currents, charting the course, and waiting for its chance to take the helm.
