This silly, campy show, a mashup of Céline Dion songs with a jokey replay of the movie “Titanic,” has moved to Broadway, virtually unchanged from the anything-for-a-laugh entertainment it was downtown, albeit with a few bigger stars now in the cast — Jim Parsons in the drag role of the evil would-be mother-in-law,  and Deborah Cox in the Kathy Bates role of the unsinkable Molly Brown. Begun in 2022, “Titanique” ran for three years Off-Broadway and then worldwide (London, Paris, Sydney, São Paulo) to audiences full of enthusiasts, not all of them gay or intoxicated.

That the show is opening tonight at Broadway’s St. James Theater marks something of a homecoming for the three Broadway veterans who wrote and co-produce it: Ty Blue, who also directs it, Marla Mindelle who also stars as Céline Dion, and Constantine Rousouli in the Leonardo DiCaprio role of Jack Dawson. If “Titanique” gives off a distinctly amateur vibe, its goofiness is professionally honed.

What does the French-Canadian pop singer Céline Dion have to do with the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage?  You may think her only connection is that she sang “My Heart Will Go On” over the ending credits of the 1997 movie inspired by that tragedy. But Céline was on that ship, as she tells the tourists at a Titanic museum in the first scene of “Titanique.” Yes, that makes her about 150 years old; cue: “I’m Alive” — one of some two dozen musical numbers associated with (but not written by) Dion, in this jukebox musical, more or less astutely worked into the narrative.

Céline becomes the narrator of the doomed watery love affair between Jack and Rose, both explaining the scenes and upstaging the characters. 

The humor falls into a wide variety of categories, among them slapstick, visual jokes,  bawdy puns, blunt profanity, pop culture references, intentional anachronisms, insider theater digs and allusions, exaggerated twists on the movie’s plot and characters. There are some unsubtle hints that Cal (John Riddle), Rose’s stern fiancé, is a closet case. (He asks the captain to speed up the arrival of ship on shore a day earlier, because “I’ve got a hair appointment in Soho. They book WAY out.”)

  In one scene, when Rose (Melissa Barrera, making her Broadway debut) tells her mother she doesn’t want to marry Cal, her mother Ruth (Jim Parsons) slaps her and calls her “you walking yeast infection!” then squeezes her into a corset.

“Mother, it’s just not fair” Rose whines in response..Ruth explodes: “Fair! You wanna know what’s not fair!? These pearls from Forever fucking 21 are not fair. The dead birds stapled to my head are NOT FAIR! Losing the 2024 Lucille Lortel Award to Marla Mindelle in Titanique is NOT fair!” (Parsons and Mindelle were both up for the Lortel Award for best performance in a musical, although it was actually in 2023.)

How much of this levity lands and how much of it is… all wet… depends on one’s sense of humor, and also one’s mood. For me, what landed wound up in about the same proportion as the Titanic survival rate. (If that analogy offends you, you’re probably not in the target audience for “Titanique.”) The musical numbers did a bit better; among the most memorable, Layton Williams as The Iceberg leading the cast in “River Deep, Mountain High” and Deborah Cox as Molly Brown belting out “All By Myself.”

“Titanique” is probably not meant to inspire reflection about the world we live in. But I was struck by how much the show dips into nostalgia for the 1990s: The blockbuster movie was released in 1997; that was the decade in which Céline Dion reached the peak of her popularity. The musical also has throwaway jokey references involving the 90’s TV series Full House, the movie franchise “Scream,” which began in 1996, the  “Super Mario Kart video game, first released in 1992. 

The 1990s had less inflation, lower prices, less polarization; Americans were far more satisfied with the direction of the country,  Can that help explain why so many theatergoers have wanted to escape into “Titanique”?

Titanique
St. James Theater through July 12
Running time:  100 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $70 – $280
Book by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli
The catalogue of Celine Dion songs has music arranged by Nicholas James Connell; Music orchestrated by Nicholas James Connell; Musical Director: Geoffrey Ko
Directed by Tye Blue; Choreographed by Ellenore Scott;
Scenic Design by Gabriel Hainer Evansohn, Grace Laubacher and Iron Bloom Creative Production; Costume Design by Alejo Vietti; Lighting Design by Paige Seber; Sound Design by Lawrence Schober; Hair and Wig Design by Charles G. LaPointe
Cast: Marla Mindelle as Céline Dion, Constantine Rousouli as Jack Dawson, Jim Parsons as Ruth Dewitt Bukater, Melissa Barrera as Rose DeWitt Bukater, Deborah Cox as Unsinkable Molly Brown, Frankie Grande as Victor Garber, John Riddle as Cal Hockley, Layton Williams as The Iceberg; Sara Gallo, Polanco Jones and Kristina Leopold as the background vocalists.