Catalpa’s do-or-die moment comes very early on as a beaten-down screenwriter gets up from his desk chair and, with a pop-pop-pop in his cheeks, becomes a seagull in the opening scenes of a failed screenplay, which might have starred Julia Roberts and Kevin Costner. For the next 90 minutes, Andrew Musselman channels more than 15 characters in this adaptation of a true tale of a Massachusetts whaling captain who, in 1875, is enlisted to help six Irish political prisoners escape from a British penal colony in Australia. Written with the muscular lyricism that only an Irish writer can achieve, Donal O’Kelly’s story is ripe with whale hunting, mutinies, dramatic chases, abandoned women and broken promises. A real guy’s play.

Musselman does an admirable job of bringing to life what must be a novella’s worth of lines, but there is something too understated about his rapid jumps from character to character. Those without strong accents and physical tics melt together. The looming presence of the depressive screenwriter/narrator infuses many scenes with glum restraint rather than buoyancy.

When the storm hits in the second act, Musselman and, for that matter, the lighting come alive with action-film excitement and you can finally let his performance wash over you, rather than struggling to keep up.