April 12, 2026 10:00 pm
★★★☆☆ Marla Mindelle, Jim Parsons and a merry crew sail off on a little spoof about a big disaster
The cast of Titanique. Photo: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
Friends, has this ever happened to you? There you sit at a Broadway musical where it seems nearly everybody in the theater is screaming with laughter and cheering the performers, and you don’t get what the hubbub’s all about. That was me the other evening at Titanique.
A musical lampoon of both the 1997 disaster flick and pop diva Céline Dion whose jukebox of trademark songs rings up for much of its score, Titanique has nabbed awards and considerable popularity over the last few seasons. After a two-year run Off Broadway plus sit-down stints among seven major cities, this musical spoof crafted by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue arrived on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on Sunday for a springtime visit.
Before going further, let’s note that I am familiar with the James Cameron film. Amid the enormous gaps in my awareness of relatively recent popular culture, however, is a nearly total blank on Céline Dion and most of the show’s songs. It’s widely reported that the bright-eyed, big-voiced Marla Mindelle, who was so fabulous in The Big Gay Jamboree, provides a delightful impression of the Canadian musical legend. The audience certainly responded enthusiastically to Mindelle’s gaily chattering impersonation of the sparkly-gowned chanteuse whenever she cheerfully barged in and out of the story.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★☆☆☆ review here.]
The incongruity of Dion suddenly materializing under a stateroom couch or beneath that shipwrecked door proves to be the show’s running, or rather, floating gag. As an easygoing satire of the film’s silly Rose-Jack-Cal romantic plot, Titanique succeeds at being even sillier, but at least it offers a happy ending. This slapdash, revue-style content and a dozen or so pop numbers are stretched across 100 intermission-free minutes in an event that Tye Blue, the director, stages to look spontaneous. The scenic designers have erected upon the stage a skeletal metal structure — shaped rather like the liner’s prow from a sea-level (or movie poster) perspective — that also suggests a Vegas lounge or cruise ship bandstand where 18 musicians vigorously pour out such likely familiar pop numbers as “All By Myself,” “Tell Him” and of course the essential “My Heart Will Go On.”
Along with Mindelle, most among the gung-ho company are splendid vocalists like coauthor Rousouli, who robustly and humorously depicts Jack, and a snappy Deborah Cox, who drifts around as Molly Brown, and they all sing their faces off. Not so much of a singer but a droll player, Jim Parsons coolly sports bee-stung lips, an aviary headpiece and a wonderfully snooty attitude in his drag incarnation as Rose’s formidable mama. Tackling other principal roles, Frankie Grande, John Riddle, Melissa Barrera and Layton Williams do as best they can with their thin, obvious material, but they are dressed effectively for their characters by designer Alejo Vietti, who fashions quite the iceberg.
Whether Titanique proves to be too casual as an entertainment to attract a goodly Broadway crowd to the 1,339-seat St. James Theatre over the next 13 weeks is a prediction thankfully beyond my expertise. Speaking of which, let me assure readers who may fear I don’t know beans about Schmigadoon and The Rocky Horror Show (which I will review next week) that I am versed in Golden Age musicals and I can dance “The Time Warp” better than most.
Titanique opened April 12, 2026, at the St. James Theatre and runs through July 12. Tickets and information: titaniquebroadway.com