‘Titanic’ musical review: Tragic tale is sweeping and thrilling — even without Jack and Rose
nypost.comthe hysterical “Titanique” downtown at the Daryl Roth Theater.Yeston’s show is far less bombastic than the Oscar-winning disaster film.
It’s an often-subtle patchwork quilt of travelers’ stories from the boat, with a particular emphasis on class disparities.Yes, there is a pair of young lovers, Kate McGowan (Samantha Williams) and Jim Farrell (rising star Andrew Durand), but also a more seasoned husband and wife, Isidor and Ida Strauss (Chip Zien and Judy Kuhn, a sublime combo).
There’s also the Titanic staff. Captain Smith (Chuck Cooper) regally commands the bridge and recklessly obeys orders to increase speed, while engine room worker Barrett (Ramin Karimloo) sweats down in the bowels of the ship knowing full-well that flooring it as a bad idea.Big-voiced Karimloo sings my favorite song in the show, called “The Proposal/The Night Was Alive,” a soaring duet with Alex Joseph Grayson’s Harold Bride, the Titanic’s wireless telegraph operator, about longing at sea.In a cast full of vets, Grayson’s geeky, sweetly sung performance is a standout.As is Bonnie Milligan being her usual very funny self as social climber Alice Beane, whose schmoozing and gossiping is put up with by her more reserved husband Edgar (Drew Gehling).The “Kimberly Akimbo” actress’ sense of humor, and the bounciness of the first act’s songs, helps the audience forget — as best we can anyway — the sad inevitability of the ending.This “Titanic” doesn’t wring out tears, though, like Jack clinging to that quite sizable door in Cameron’s movie.
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