Titanique - Review of 2024 Production of Musical at CAA Theatre

Can you turn the sinking of the Titanic, a tragic event of 1912 where more than 1500 of its 2240 passengers drowned, into a stage farce? The answer from most people would be not bloody likely but that applies only to people who have not seen the musical Titanique that is now playing at the CAA Theatre in Toronto.
The musical is loosely based on the mostly fictional story of the 1997 James Cameron film with the added character of Celine Dion (Veronique Claveau). She is in a museum about the ship and takes over as our host in the telling of the story based on the movie. The story is about Jack (Seth Zosky), an impoverished artist passenger who stops Rose (Mariah Campos), a beautiful young woman from committing suicide by jumping overboard. They fall in love, of course, but here are some issues. Rose is engaged to the wealthy Cal (Michael Torontow), an arrogant jerk whom she does not love. Celine Dion is a focal point of the play with a soaring voice and a spell-binding performance that is hilarious at times and in control of the audience throughout. At the end of the performance you will find out about her presence on the Titanic in 1912 and in a museum a century later. I do not se and tell.
The book for the musical is by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue. It has eighteen songs by various composers. Molly Brown (Erica Peck) better known as the unsinkable was in fact a passenger on the Titanic who survived.
What do you get? You get an assault on your ears, eyes and the senses that lasts for the full 100 minutes of the show. The singing is outstanding but the excessive volume is at best annoying. The spectacle of lights and kinetic energy on the stage has its place but there is such a thing as too much.
The whole thing is a farce, a burlesque, a spectacle. We saw Veronique Claveau imitate Celline’s performance style and she was indeed spectacular. The great voice is only a small part of her performance artillery. She uses her whole body like an additional punch to her singing, throwing her arms in the air, twisting her body, soaring and keeping the audience in the palm of her hand. If she just sang, however beautifully or powerfully, she could keep an audience entertained for a while but she does a lot more than that.
The other songs the singers are part of the comedy as well as belting out songs at a volume and pitch that should leave them without vocal cords after 100 minutes but most of it is turned on volume through the speakers that should mean the strain is felt (and endured) by the audience and not the performers.
To turn a tragedy into a farce you need broad humour, slapstick, and good and bad jokes. There is only lettuce to eat today, someone says. I hope it is not iceberg, comes the reply. The pathetic number of lifeboats, the speed of the legendary liner and the relationship between Jack and Rose is always played for laughs. Acting is almost never considered and overacting is practiced incessantly. The actors take comic poses, throw their arms up in the air and overdo everything for a laugh. Rose’s mother Ruth (Constant Bernard) is an example of a caricature of a comic character that is played strictly for laughs.
The humour is current (we have to put up with Trump for another four years) and slapstick and everything else in between is done as long as it garners a laugh. It did frequently. Christopher Ning appears as the Iceberg Bitch, he Tour Guide and id I am not Mistaken as Tina Turner, played for laughs, of course.
I go to the theater to review the performance and not the audience but many times a comment about them is irresistible.
A lady near me found the whole show so absorbing and entertaining that she laughed at almost every line, posture and gesture, and invoked her deity or her virtue (OMG) with alarming frequency. There were some good lines but I had a mixed reaction to her enthusiasm. On the one hand I envied her because she enjoyed the performance so enthusiastically but on the other hand, I could not figure out her endless excitement, especially when she was almost the only one in the theatre doing it. I could not join her extreme enjoyment that was so artificially enhanced by, as I said, an assault on my ears, eyes and senses. There may have been others in the audience who shared my views but most people probably did not.
Well, there is no accounting for taste.
Titanique by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue continues at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario. For more information go to: www.mirvish.com/

The original Canadian company of Titanique. Photo Credit: Marie-Andrée Lemire

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