Rep’s ‘Titanic’ Is a Triumph

For 12 years as artistic director, Mark Clements has pushed the Milwaukee Rep to incorporate the big musical as a primary part of its annual mainstage offerings – not just any Broadway show but the opera-sized musicals, the ones eschewing comic pratfalls to elevate social meaning, sometime catering to a minority audience the Rep lacked or a pop motif new to the subscription audience, other times emphasizing enormous singing and unbridled energy.

But Clements and patrons have now achieved the pinnacle of his desires – the best production of his Rep career through May 14 – and it is an unusual one at that. Titanic the Musical is little known except to theater buffs, but it actually won the Tony award in 1997. That was unfortunate timing since an unrelated runaway romantic film called Titanic grabbed the headlines that year.

The Broadway show was called troubled, though it combined the musical and lyrical talents of Maury Yeston and the libretto gifts of the late great Peter Stone. The collapse of an ocean liner costing 1,517 lives – as a musical? It had enormous epic scope beneath the music – some 30 actors performing 75 key roles as they flow from instant strangers to meaningful human contacts, each telling a story the audience barely knew – and without knowing which ones would live or die. Not surprisingly the first class did better than the third or the crew.

The construction issues imagining the Titanic on a Broadway stage meant the show opened cold without any out-of-town tryouts. Since then many theaters have foundered on the rocks of creating it despite the sweep of its score.

Not Clements. His love for the show permeates this production. He had a vision built around the powerful theatricality of the score and he recognized how many new tools besides enormous sets are available to the stage. Of all Milwaukee theaters, the Rep has the money, the technical wizardry and power to draw the performers and artisans it needs, not just the best singing acting voices who call Wisconsin home, but importing many folks with terrific credits.

Clements also believes the audience can create the magic setting of the Titanic, represented on stage at times by a small model. He also keeps everything in swirling motion.

Set designer Tim Mackabee combines every corner of the Rep’s three-quarter stage – the entry ways and the aisles become part of the Titanic. Rear projections credited to Mike Tutaj show historic views of the Titanic taking form as the music swells in welcome. The set soon gives way to gangplanks, bridges, portholes of the various decks, ramps and moving tables reflecting the posh dinners and the humble third-class meals.

Throughout, lighting designer Jason Fassl and minions are shaking the rafters down to under the floor with lighting techniques – pools of tiny lights to illuminate tableaus, trapdoor lights emulating stoker fires, sudden blinding flashes as the Titanic hits the iceberg, and constantly moving people and mood lights. Costume designer Alexander B. Tecoma must have an enormous crew of busy underlings to switch the cast from elegant period dress to worried passengers caught in their nightclothes.

There are two roles that drive plot – one is big-voiced busy-body Lillian Castillo whose tireless efforts to invade first class actually call attention to all the personalities aboard. We come to relish her nosiness.

The other is Matt Daniels whose singing anchors many scenes as he always lurks in the corners or strides center stage to provide continuity as the oh-so-snobbish yet all-too-human British steward.

Imagine an eight-piece chamber ensemble under Dan Kazemi behind the scrim, with perfect miking and augmentation, sounding like the Royal Philharmonic. Image the best choir you can think of where everyone can act as well as sing. Imagine a moving of the masses yet still leaving room for intimacy and individual stories and songs to float out.

This is actually one of Clements’ best achievements. Seldom do we waste time looking too long into the variety of people we become attracted to. The “Ladies Maid” number not only introduces three Irish lasses named Kate, but allows everyone in third class to dream about what they will find in America. (Few third-class passengers survived.)

Clements moves quickly through the love ballads to the larger meaning. He makes us love the rapport between Philip Hoffman and Carrie Hitchcock as the elderly couple who refuse to separate. He lets us relish the explosion between the captain (David Hess) and Ismay the demanding owner (Andrew Varela). Two performers whose solos anchor much of the chorale, Nathaniel Hackmann as stoker Barrrett and Steve Pacek as the radio operator, share a memorable amusing duet pondering the value of wireless.

The danger for a critic strolling through a production of such immense accomplishment is leaving names out, so I apologize in advance in noting such talents as Emma Rose Brooks, Jeremy Landon Hays, Tim Quartier, Julio Rey – I’m probably missing others – and also the local talents who stand out and blend in – Kelley Faulkner, Hitchcock, Rana Roman and as the nominal villain of the piece, Varela. The entire cast will have to underline this production in their memory books.

Titanic the Musical Gallery

Dominique Paul Not served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.