Titaníque Review: Campy Céline Dion Musical's Broadway Transfer Loses Some Charm
The extremely campy Céline Dion jukebox musical Titaníque has now opened on Broadway at the St James Theatre in New York, bringing its hilariously deranged riff on the Titanic disaster to a larger stage. According to its creators, the idea originated as a drunken riff between friends – what if the Québécois Queen of Feelings not only sang the theme song of the movie Titanic but sincerely believed she survived the disaster?
From Humble Beginnings to Broadway Scale
The co-authors Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue made the show extra zany, extra gay, and extra kooky crazy – to quote the truly inimitable Dion herself. The first staging of Titaníque took place in the basement of a shuttered Manhattan grocery store, representing the theatrical equivalent of a rowboat. The adaptable and very meta show then upgraded to a series of ever-larger productions: a buzzy, post-pandemic Off-Broadway run, a world tour, and an acclaimed West End stint.
While attending the new-and-improved Titaníque at the too-cavernous St James Theater, one might feel nostalgic for those humble beginnings. The jazzed-up show now has the budget and scale befitting an ocean liner – or more accurately, a corporate reality TV show. The tiered risers, on-stage band (who sound great), and neon-red stage lights look less like Titanic and more like The X Factor, as Mindelle joked in one of her many asides as the singer.
Self-Aware Humor and Meta Broadway In-Jokes
This madcap tribute, directed by Tye Blue, has those wink-wink notes and meta Broadway in-jokes in spades, but the heightened environment also exposes the show's limitations in scale. At times, though certainly not always, the vocal wattage struggles when compared to one of the all-time greats like Céline Dion.
Raucous, raunchy and very tenuously plotted (not a complaint!), the show befits a looser, boozier, more intimate environment where Mindelle could really get up in there as she tries to do in full-diva parody mode. She gets there mostly – this is still a consistently very funny show, electrified by a handful of true full-belt diva moments and unreasonably committed to its bit in a way befitting of Dion.
The Cast and Characters
Mindelle, an Olivier winner for the West End run, gamely inhabits the role of the singer in all her sequined, bizarrely accented, chest-pounding glory, destroying the fourth wall with vocal runs and references to cult-beloved YouTube compilations of her kooky craziest interviews. According to her character, she was there on that fateful April night in 1912 – smelling the fresh paint, using the unused china and sleeping in the unslept sheets.
The hybrid movie-celebrity-parody characters include:
- The lovers Jack (Rousouli, busting out of his slim-fit khakis) and Rose (Melissa Barrera, lithe and glamorous even in complete farce)
- Rose's imperious, eyeliner-loving fiance Cal (John Riddle)
- Her far scarier mother (Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons, a deranged comedic highlight)
- The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Deborah Cox)
- Actor/Capt Victor Garber (Frankie Grande, brother of Ariana, taking the mantra of too much very seriously)
- The cheekily titled Seaman (Layton Williams)
Performance Highlights and Audience Considerations
Like the singer, Titaníque does not stop moving, with performers hustling on and off stage and switching characters as if running a race or competing on a reality singing competition. The show misses no opportunity for a bawdy roast of the Titanic movie. Some jokes, such as a ribald reinterpretation of the movie's window-fogging sex, are deliriously funny while others, particularly anything phone or Soho-related, felt strained.
The consistently sharp humor skews pop culture niche and gay. Will the necessarily broad Broadway audience respond well to references to Grindr and the latest season of RuPaul's Drag Race? That remains uncertain. However, audiences will likely appreciate a winking, burn-the-house-down rendition of All By Myself by pop diva and former Dion backup singer Deborah Cox.
Standing Ovation Moments
Ironically enough, the show's other standing-ovation highlight comes in the form of another showbiz diva, played by the terrific Williams in drag as that damn iceberg, treating audiences to an athletic vocal feat befitting Broadway. Both moments come in the show's superior second half, when it largely dispenses with the movie and instead indulges why we're all here: to watch fabulous singers power through Dion's dementedly dramatic catalog with extreme unseriousness and a dash of show-tune pizazz.
If there is one thing the real Dion believes, it is in the power of singing as passionately as possible, as much as possible. Once Titaníque embraces that philosophy, it's full steam ahead toward a triumphant finish. While dick joke mileage may vary, the Dion highs, like a good bit, go on and on in this delightfully campy musical that proves bigger isn't always better when transferring from intimate venues to Broadway's grand stages.
