‘Titanic’ Parody Proves a Shallow Spectacle on Broadway

Give the creators of “Titaníque,” the overbaked jukebox musical that just opened at Broadway’s St. James Theatre, this much credit: They realized that asking an audience to spend an hour and forty minutes watching one of them impersonate Celine Dion might be too great a demand.So Marla Mindelle, the actress, singer, and writer charged with that task, and her co-librettists, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue, decided to concoct a parody of “Titanic,” the 1997 blockbuster film that featured as its theme song one of Ms. Dion’s biggest hits, the swooning ballad “My Heart Will Go On.” The resulting show was a runaway smash downtown and in London, picking up a bevy of awards; it has also been staged in Chicago and in various other countries.I’ll admit I didn’t catch any of those productions, but I tried to approach the new one with an open mind, despite my skepticism about musicals fueled primarily or, in this case, purely by camp. I’ve already spent too many evenings at the theater watching, dazed, as other audience members cackled and slapped their knees at the hoariest and most obvious jokes, convinced they were largely congratulating themselves for recognizing certain cultural references.If that’s your idea of a good time, “Titaníque” has plenty to offer, starting with winking nods to a wide range of classic and contemporary musicals, among them “Beauty and the Beast,” which conveniently provided Ms. Dion with another massive single. The singer’s catalogue, including older tunes she has covered such as “All By Myself” and “River Deep — Mountain High,” is also played largely for laughs, with performers popping up as Ms. Dion’s duet partners or, in one case, Tina Turner, who made “River Deep” a classic.The premise is that Ms. Dion herself was a passenger on the ill-fated 1912 voyage that inspired director James Cameron, as it had others before him. “It’s been 84 years and I can still smell the fresh paint,” Ms. Mindelle, as Celine, tells us; then, as other cast members recreate characters played by a young Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and others, she provides commentary while continually inserting herself into the action, sometimes at the most indelicate moments. Ms. Mindelle mocks the French-Canadian pop star’s accent and her penchant for combining diva-like gestures with a goofy overeagerness. “Can I get a high five? Can I get a low five? Can I get a kiss? Just kidding. Or am I,” her Celine gushes early on. The humor gets progressively bawdier from there: She introduces “Victor Garber’s trusted assistant” — for some reason, the ship’s captain is always identified as the actor who played him onscreen — as “the Seaman,” prompting the latter to reply, “Everybody loves Seaman.” Celine responds, “Not lesbians.”If you love a good dirty joke, as I certainly do, you know how dispiriting it can be to hear blue humor used witlessly, and this, for me, was the most irritating aspect of “Titaníque.” When a few quips and gags in a show don’t fly, it can actually add to a sense of giddy fun, but when the stinkers keep coming fast and furious, it almost suggests arrogance. Mr. Blue, who directs the production, has retained numerous actors from the off-Broadway cast, including, in addition to Ms. Mindelle, Mr. Rousouli, who steps into Mr. DiCaprio’s shoes as Jack Dawson, the young hero, and Frankie Grande, who in his playbill biography notes he has “been gay” in a variety of artistic pursuits and is “even gayer” here. Mr. Grande is one of several performers whose real-life identities, along with those of some actors featured in the movie, are acknowledged for comic effect. Some players ad lib: At a recent preview, stage and screen star Jim Parsons, who has joined the company in the role of Ruth DeWitt Bukater, the snobbish mother of Jack’s love interest, Rose, mentions losing a distinguished theater award to Ms. Mindelle.Mr. Parsons is predictably sharp in the rather limited part, as is the mighty-voiced Deborah Cox, another accomplished newcomer to the cast, as Molly Brown, that unsinkable traveler. “She’s nothing but misery,” Ruth says of Molly, a wink to another film starring the actress who played Molly onscreen. “Get it? She’s Kathy Bates?”If that line made you roll out of your chair, or even giggle, perhaps “Titaníque” is for you. Otherwise, spare yourself the trip.

‘Titanic’ Parody Proves a Shallow Spectacle on Broadway

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