“Titanic” turns out to be the ideal musical for an Encores! concert, focused on the music.
The original 1997 Broadway production about the most famous maritime disaster in history was an expensive epic, with a large cast, grand themes, and, above all, a state-of-the-art, technologically elaborate set. It was not a conventional Broadway flop: Reviews were mixed, but it won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for two years. Still, I remember being disappointed by it. At the much-promised dramatic moment when the Titanic supposedly sank, it just sort of awkwardly…tilted.
Director Anne Kauffman dispenses with all expectations of impressive stagecraft. The story of a ship that flooded after hitting an iceberg, drowning more than 1,500 passengers, features an abstract, minimal set with no discernible ship, nor a drop even of simulated water – this after a Broadway season with one stage after another drenched in the real stuff: a downpour in both “The Notebook” and “The Outsiders,” a hostile bombardment of ice cubes in “An Enemy of the People.”
What’s most visible is the thirty-piece orchestra, elevated on a platform some ten feet above the stage, above the starry thirty-two member cast. The visual set-up is a preview to the overall message: Pay attention to the music.
The opening number, which introduces the entire cast of characters – officers and crew, first class passengers, second class passengers, those in steerage — lasts almost twenty minutes, and makes clear: This is a choral piece.
Sure, we still get a bombardment of facts and statistics in the lyrics – that the maiden voyage of the largest ever cruise ship was loaded with 42,000 fresh eggs, and 3,700 bottles of wine, but only enough life boats to save a third of the passengers. We’re told that the Titanic was as long as a skyscraper is tall – the equivalent (by my calculation) of some 60 stories. It’s certainly made clear the Titanic was full of stories. We get them, but primarily in service to the songs.
Among the most memorable: Bonnie Milligan as second-class passenger and social climber Alice Beane sings “I Have Danced” about her hobnobbing with the wealthy first-class passengers with her down-to-earth and mildly exasperated husband Edgar (Drew Gehling.)
Ramin Karimloo as the stoker Frederick Barrett in “The Proposal/The Night Was Alive,”duets with Alex Joseph Grayson as telegraph operator Harold Bride, after Barrett convinces Bride to send a shipboard telegram to Frederick’s girlfriend back home, relaying his marriage proposal, and Bride marvels at the modern technological achievement that allows him to do so. Chip Zien and Judy Kuhn as Isidore and Ida Straus sing of their love in “Still.” This musical renewal of their vows is long after it has become clear that the Titanic is sinking – which is primarily represented in this production by a tea cart slowly skidding across the stage .
These individual numbers stand out, but the larger choral and orchestral numbers are just as engaging – the period pastiche, operetta, Irish folk music , ragtime, and the sounds of a ship – the blast of the whistle, the dot-dash-dot of the telegraph machine – translated into music. And the tragedy driven home not by the words, but the cacophony and confusion, remorse and regret musically embodied by the richly layered choral numbers.
Rich choral numbers that musically represent the cacophony and confusion in reaction by passengers and crew to the collision
Titanic is on stage at New York City Center through June 23.
Story & Book by Peter Stone
Music & Lyrics by Maury Yeston
Original Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick
Scenic Designer Paul Tate dePoo III
Costume Designer Márion Talán de la Rosa
Lighting Designer David Weiner
Sound Designer Megumi Katayama
Production Stage Manager Cynthia Cahill
Featuring The Encores! Orchestra
Guest Music Director Rob Berman
Directed by Anne Kauffman
Cast: Chuck Cooper, Eddie Cooper, Andrew Durand, Drew Gehling, Ramin Karimloo, Judy Kuhn, Jose Llana, Bonnie Milligan, Brandon Uranowitz, and Chip Zien
