Here’s a Titanic that doesn’t sink
The idea of a musical based on the Titanic catastrophe seemed almost crass, but this show, first performed in 1997, is in some ways handled with a greater sense of reality, than the James Cameron $200million film released the same year. It’s a cautionary tale about how vaulting ambition, engineering brilliance, great craftsmanship and high hopes were shattered by careless navigation.
The long opening section, sung by the whole company as an homage to human inventiveness celebrates Titanic as ‘a floating city, the ship of dreams’, comparable to achievements like the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China. J. Bruce Ismay, the boss of the White Star Line company that built the ship, is the nearest thing to a villain in this version of a tragedy that still resonates with its list of fatal mistakes: unheeded warnings, communications problems, design flaws and Ismay’s apparent insistence on speeding through dangerous seas.
The passengers and the tragedy followed prevailing class structure: the rich and famous on the safer upper deck, lesser mortals down below.
And the epic story was matched by a huge cast, singing singly and in chorus as a terrific ensemble group. Since the final outcome is no secret, the first half, with its documentarystyle blitz of statistics about technical data and dining, is full of doomed ironic comment about what the ship could achieve and about the hopes of passengers dreaming of love and a new life in America. The strongest characters were Ismay, Captain (Edward) Smith and the designer Thomas Andrews, but there was plenty of humour and activity through the interaction between personalities, the romances, and touchy personal relationships.
The pace did drag at times, particularly during the overloaded first act, despite some fine performances. But once the ship struck the iceberg the dramatic content soared, as incomprehension, heroism and selfishness, along with sharp recriminations over who was to blame, replaced joyful aspirations. The show doesn’t leave you whistling the tunes, but the music and lyrics drove the drama relentlessly in forceful operatic style and the final sinking was an emotion-charged piece of theatre that caught the awful horror of the situation.
It’s a story that needs a quiet, reflective ending, but that kind of scene demands silence from an audience, and the repeated opening chorus provided an emotional send-off that brought the show to a more traditional final curtain.