Never bet against Broadway’s thirst for boldface figures, especially when they have an appeal as broad as the “Titanic” movie and the Canadian superstar Celine Dion. No wonder the gods of Times Square decided to gamble on a musical that combines the two: “Titaníque,” which opened on Sunday at the St. James Theater.
Lest you think that this doesn’t sound like much of a risk — after all, that James Cameron blockbuster from 1997 remains one of the top-grossing movies of all time — just know that “Titaníque” is no mere adaptation.
The show’s improbable stage life began four years ago in a subterranean Manhattan space. Never could I have imagined then that the proudly, exuberantly silly “Titaníque” would become an international phenomenon with productions in multiple countries. (The London iteration won an Olivier Award last year for best new entertainment or comedy play, and is still running in the West End.) The lesson here is you can’t underestimate the appeal of a good-time camp fest.
“Titaníque” takes place in a parallel dimension in which Dion (Marla Mindelle) was a passenger on the doomed steamship and somehow lived to tell us what really happened to Jack (Constantine Rousouli), Rose (Melissa Barrera) and Rose’s mother, Ruth (Jim Parsons). (Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Frances Fisher played the characters in the movie.) The song list includes the film’s anthem, “My Heart Will Go On,” of course, along with some of Dion’s other hits, immediately tagging “Titaníque” as one of the highest-concept jukebox musicals to ever dock on Broadway.
The show fills the St. James’s stage surprisingly well, with its functional scenic design, by Gabriel Hainer Evansohn and Grace Laubacher for Iron Bloom Creative Production, feeding a joke about it looking like the set from “The Voice.” But, perhaps illustrating the fact that sometimes too much is not enough, the musical does not quite live up to its premise.
Hatched up by Mindelle, Rousouli and Tye Blue (who also directed), the production delivers a storm of gags, pop-culture references, slapstick and audience interaction. Improvisation is not just welcome but also built in as Mindelle makes up a short scene at every performance. The night I attended, she riffed on her Broadway neighbors Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele.
The show is constantly tweaked so the various knowing nods remain current, but musicals are a perennial source of inspiration — two examples among many: Jack refers to his costume as a “bootleg ‘Newsies’ outfit,” cardboard cutouts of Patti LuPone and Nicole Scherzinger have cameos. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” should also get credit for influencing the overall tone, with its giggly, often risqué embrace of queerness.
There’s a lot to digest, and the pace doesn’t help: It is so relentless that it’s as if we’re watching a playback at twice the normal speed. Sometimes “Titaníque” lands and sometimes it merely treads water. Sometimes it achieves an exhilarating lunacy and sometimes it is just exhausting.
The most common comic device is the obliteration of the fourth wall, and the fifth one, too, since we are clearly in an alternate universe. Not only are many lines and winks aimed directly at the audience, but the jokes don’t differentiate between cast members and characters. This is most obvious with the character of Dion. Through facial expressions, surreal ad libs and a French Canadian accent, Mindelle flawlessly portrays the singer as a spotlight-hogging narrator — at its best, her kitschy mélange of satire and loving tribute is cheesetastíque, to echo the randomly accented title.
Almost everybody gets ensnared in this game at one point or another. Caught off-guard in a vulnerable moment, Rose says, “I didn’t know anyone was here,” to which Deborah Cox’s Molly Brown sings back, “Nobody’s supposed to be here” — the title of Cox’s 1998 quiet storm hit. Cox’s fans also probably know that at the beginning of her career she was a backup singer for Dion and twice lost the Juno Award (the Canadian version of the Grammy) for best female vocalist to her former boss. Along the same lines, Parsons gets a reference to “The Big Bang Theory,” Barrera a nod to the “Scream” movies she starred in.
The juxtaposing between fictional and real extends to Victor Garber, a star of the Cameron movie who is supposedly himself here and portrayed by Frankie Grande — the actor also plays Luigi, a look-alike of the Mario game character. Layton Williams handles two parts as well: a seaman (cue some blue single entendres) and the iceberg that sank the supposedly unsinkable liner.
It is in that capacity that Williams — a transfer from the London production, where his performance earned an Olivier Award — delivers the show’s biggest surprise. You might expect Dion, and thus Mindelle, to have the show-stealing number but it’s the iceberg who has that honor with “River Deep, Mountain High,” a song made famous by Ike and Tina Turner, then covered by Dion. After changing into a frosted wig and a sparkly white get-up that channels both Tina Turner and a sparkly chunk of ice (costumes by Alejo Vietti), Williams proceeds to commit high-seas grand theft with athletic splits, powerhouse vocals and megawatt charisma. Cox comes close to matching that thunder with a rousing (if abbreviated) “All by Myself.”
What about the putative star? Excellent in the book scenes, Mindelle seemed to hold back a bit during the songs when I saw the show, sounding more cautiously restrained than she did four years ago. As for Parsons, he tries his darnedest, but finds only the meanness in Ruth, which doesn’t help when the show resorts to dumb crudeness — at one point Ruth calls Rose a “walking yeast infection,” a drab line in any multiverse.
Fortunately the romantic couple does a lot of cleanup work. Barrera, whose extensive screen credits include Vanessa in the movie version of “In the Heights,” makes an assured Broadway debut, filling with ease the difficult niche this Rose occupies: the funny ingénue. She has terrific scene partners in John Riddle as Rose’s smarmy fiancé, Cal, and in Rousouli, whose goofball Jack is mostly defined by wide-eyed enthusiasm and form-fitting pants.
If anybody thought this kind of fare wasn’t ready for Broadway, well, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” is playing across the street and “Oh, Mary!” is a couple of blocks away. “Titaníque” may be uneven, but at least it fits right in.
Titaníque Through July 12 at the St. James Theater, Manhattan; titaniquebroadway.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.
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