According to its creators, the idea for Titaníque, the extremely campy Céline Dion jukebox musical now open on Broadway, 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? A Céline-ified Titanic is an appropriately silly concept – possibly no one has provided the world as much camp sincerity as the 90s power ballad pioneer, and the beloved movie could use some unserious updates. Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue, the co-authors, made the show extra zany, extra gay, extra “kooky crazy” (to quote the truly inimitable Dion) and set sail in the theatrical equivalent of a rowboat; the first staging of Titaníque took place in the basement of a shuttered Manhattan grocery store. Adaptable and very meta, the show upgraded to a series of ever-larger craft: a buzzy, post-pandemic Off-Broadway run, a world tour, then an acclaimed West End stint.
Though, to my deep regret, I missed out on the original Off-Broadway run, I found myself nostalgic for those humble beginnings while attending the new-and-improved Titaníque at the too-cavernous St James Theater, where 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, it should be noted, sound great) and, most evocatively, neon-red stage lights look less like Titanic, even a very loosely interpreted one, and more like The X Factor, as Mindelle joked in one of her many asides as the singer. Why? Who’s to say. Self-awareness counts for a lot in the very funny Titaníque, though not an explanation.
This madcap tribute, directed here by 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 (and, at times, but certainly not always, vocal wattage; it’s tough when the comparison is with one of the all-time greats). Raucous, raunchy and very tenuously plotted (not a complaint!), the show befits a looser, boozier, more intimate environment, one 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, one electrified by a handful of true full-belt diva moments and unreasonably committed to its bit in a way befitting of Dion. 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 (“You know this? It’s a deep cut,” she said, possibly looking at me.)
The singular singer is now the definitive source on the Ship of Dreams; according to her, she was there on that fateful April night in 1912 – smelling the fresh paint, using the unused china and sleeping in the unslept sheets. And, of course, pulling all focus from everyone, much to the chagrin of the hybrid movie-celebrity-parody characters: 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) and 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) and the cheekily titled Seaman (Layton Williams).
Like the singer, Titaníque does not stop moving, the performers hustling on and off stage and switching characters as if running a race or, say, competing on a reality singing competition. There is, I suppose, a lot of movie to get through, and the show misses no opportunity for a bawdy roast. Some jokes, such as a ribald reinterpretation of the movie’s window-fogging sex, are deliriously funny; 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? I genuinely don’t know. Will they appreciate a winking, burn-the-house-down rendition of All By Myself by pop diva and former Dion backup singer Deborah Cox? How could you not?
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 that I will not spoil. 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, it’s full steam ahead toward a triumphant finish: dick joke mileage may vary, but the Dion highs, like a good bit, go on and on.
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