Swap the Grand Electric for a Titanic museum and you’ve got the opening for Titanique, a raucous jukebox musical telling the story of the ill-fated voyage aboard the Titanic, except from the perspective of its most famous passenger, Celine Dion (Marnie McQueen).
Bypassing practicalities of all kinds, Celine wants us to know what really went down aboard the Ship of Dreams, and, as Titanique shows, what she says goes.
That’s how we find an emotionally stifled, sorry blackberry trifle loving, Rose (Georgina Hopson), with her tightly-wound mother Ruth (Stephen Anderson) and her unimpressed fiancé Cal (Keane Sheppard-Fletcher), meeting an intermittently fasting Jack (Drew Weston) with his best friend Luigi (Matt Lee) — yes, that Luigi.
The actor Victor Garber (Matt Lee) is captaining the ship with the Seaman (Abu Kebe). The passengers on the ship, including the unsinkable Molly Brown, all text each other on their iPhones too.
Titanique hits all the beats of the Titanic story you know — Rose and Jack on the edge of the boat, Jack drawing Rose (except with a feline twist), and the infamous wooden door — but connects them in a new kooky crazy story, worthy of its own edition of musical theatre mad libs.
Writers Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue have packed the show with references, weaving together stalwart theatrical favourites and niche local casting drama, rewarding the queer community, musical theatre lovers, and the chronically online. While the quips will go on, and the audience keeps laughing, one might wonder whether Titanique is teetering toward its own iceberg — can there be too many references?
Amidst the many American references brought over from its Los Angeles and Off-Broadway origins are a smattering of Australian-ified jokes. The mentions of local icons occasionally feel like a little too easy of a laugh, but sometimes find that sweet spot of impressive specificity, earning a gasp along with the inevitable giggle.
Titanique is a lot, but it obviously loves being so. It’s silly and fun, oozing camp and sparkles from every facet of the comically large Heart of the Ocean. Under the direction of creator Tye Blue, the stellar cast keeps you from becoming too lost in the chaos, quickly throwing the audience into the next moment of chaos and still managing to deliver a satisfying twist at the end.
Marney McQueen, Georgina Hopson, and Drew Weston are formidable as the fabulous trio of Celine, Rose and Jack, keeping the audience, and sometimes each other, laughing through the show. Abu is enthralling as the Iceberg bitch, bringing even more popstar divadom to an already packed stage.
Stephen Anderson is a standout as Rose’s mother Ruth – and thanks to Alejo Vietti’s costume design, makes ‘your hair is a bird’s nest’ a reality. Anderson gleefully tells musicians to memorise their music (after all, they had to) and delivers my favourite adlib of the night, joking that they were starring in “Stairs the Musical” and were one wrong step away from falling and killing the former politician sitting at one of the Captain’s Tables below.
Perhaps ironically, the rest of the Grand Electric feels better dressed for the voyage than the actual stage, which is covered with white acrylic light-up panels surrounding the many stairs (designed by Gabriel Hainer Evansohn and Grace Laubacher for Iron Bloom). The seating is sorted into banks of the ship (from the Captain’s Tables through to the Bow, Bridge, Stern and Top Deck) with nautical doors on either side of the stage allowing the cast to weave in and out of the audience.
At one point in the centre of a spiralling moment of chaos, Rose’s fiancé turns to her mother Ruth to ask, “what are you doing?” To which Ruth matter-of-factly says, “my best.” That’s exactly what the Australian production of Titanique is doing, its best. If you are up for the most chaotic night you might have ever spent at the theatre, grab your seat for a trip aboard the North Star liner.
Titanique is sailing at the Grand Electric until November 3.
