✭✭✭✩✩

book by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli & Tye Blue, directed by Tye Blue

David and Hannah Mirvish & The Segal Centre, CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge Street, Toronto

December 8, 2024-January 19, 2025

“Say, a doggy is nuttin’ if he don’ have a bone” (“Who Let the Dogs Out”, Baha Men, 2000)

Titaníque, a co-production of Mirvish and the Segal Centre, arrives in Toronto buoyed with rave reviews. The show is a parody of the 1997 blockbuster Titanic with the twist that Céline Dion is a major character and the story is told using songs that Céline made famous. It sounds like a lot of fun and that is how the whooping, wildly applauding opening night audience found it. I, however, in what will be a minority opinion, found the show “kooky crazy”, to use a Célinism – and not in a good way. The show has the shambolic feel of the creators throwing whatever they thought was funny at it and hoping something would stick.

The musical begins with a group wandering over the set following a tour guide. They are in a museum in an unnamed location dedicated to the sinking of the Titanic. Suddenly a bent-over woman stands up, throws off her shawls and is none other than Céline Dion, dressed in a gold lamé gown. She has appeared to tell the group that what they saw in the 1997 movie by James Cameron was not really what happened. The assumption here is that Cameron’s film was a documentary, otherwise, why would we need to know what “really” happened. Céline can tell the group the truth because she was there and survived the sinking. “In 1912?”, the guard asks. Even though she would now be over 112 years old, Céline says with an enigmatic smile that she was there. We then proceed to a rough traversal of the movie’s plot. All this is actually unnecessary since the big truth Céline wants to reveal occurs after the movie ends.

With a premise this loony, it is pointless to ask why three friends – Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue – would create an entire musical with the purpose of satirizing a movie that was already 20 years old when they began writing it. Such a non-current object of satire might better be suited to a 20-minute sketch than a 90-minute-long musical. Indeed, the musical initially played in shortened concert form at cabarets before being discovered. Although the action is set in the present, the Céline Dion who appears is not the present-day Céline Dion suffering from stiff person syndrome who made an heroic appearance at the Paris Olympics. Instead, this is the Céline Dion of her Las Vegas residencies of 2003-07 and 2011-19.

While there is much that is worthy of satire in Titanic, Titaníque takes such a scattershot approach that the show provides no sort of trenchant critique of the movie. It flattens the characters to turn them into cartoons and it neglects crucial plot points. The has no interest in why the disaster happened. It supposes that the captain agrees to Cal’s demand to speed up because he has to be in New York for a hair appointment. This is funny but, like too much in the show, has nothing to do with the movie. Incredibly, the show ignores the biggest controversy in the movie – why Jack stays in the freezing water instead of climbing onto the floating door with Rose. In the show Rose says the door is big enough for two, but it never questions Jack’s remaining in the water even though he apparently does have to.

“Satire” in the show consists mainly in substituting raunch for any kind of sentiment. The show is noticeably devoid of cleverness unless making frequent wordplay on “semen” and “seaman” counts as clever. In general, “wit” consists primarily of adding the word “bitch” to the end of any sentence. Humour derives either from making the characters as vulgar as possible or from loading the dialogue with anachronistic references. The unsinkable Molly Brown is called “the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and the battle for who gets a lifeboat is conducted like a lip-synch contest on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

The three creators intended the show as a celebration of Céline Dion, and the all the songs included in the show are ones that Céline made famous, or in the case of “Who Let the Dogs Out”, was secretly recorded. But this is where the show is the most frustrating. None of the songs is sung all the way through. They are either cut short or interrupted somewhere in the middle. Surprisingly, this even applies to “My Heart Will Go On”. Then, even their incomplete state, the songs are often intentionally marred by the singers making funny faces or deliberately muddling the words. The point seems to be to stifle any sentiment the songs may evoke. Considering that Céline of known for her emotional delivery, it’s hard to see how avoiding emotion honours her in any way.

I have seen some of the cast in other shows and know they are fine actors. Director Tye Blue, however, has encouraged the cast to play their roles as far over the top as possible. Blue seems to think using lots of mugging, funny voices and funny walks add to the hilarity when, for me, it only makes a show tiresome.

The one actor to escape his unhelpful influence is Québécoise actor Véronique Claveau as Céline Dion. Claveau as Céline is the heart of the show. Her strong voice and minutely detailed impersonation of Céline is comic making us recognize how accurate her portrayal is. Claveau obviously loves all the quirks of Céline’s manner of speech, gestures and stage persona. What Claveau communicates in not a mockery of Céline at all but a real admiration for her. When Claveau briefly impersonate Édith Piaf, we see that admiration must extend to all of her subjects.

It’s a pity that the way Claveau treats Céline is not the way the three creators treat Titanic. The show gives us no clue why the movie was worth their time in parodying or the show worth our time in watching.

Simply in terms of singing, the next most impressive actor is Christopher Ning who plays four roles including Peabo Bryson and Tina Turner. He does great impressions of both – the first in a duet with Céline in “Beauty and the Beast”, the second on his own in a rousing version of “River Deep - Mountain High”.

Mariah Campos and Seth Zosky are vocally well cast as Rose and Jack. They have the difficult task of playing lovers in a emotion-phobic production and therefore, more than other cast members, are made to ruin the songs they by miming throwing up or going into spasms. It’s too bad since they both have fine voices that blend well together.

Erica Peck strives to make more than the cartoon of Molly Brown she’s been given. She throws herself so fully into “All By Myself” that really should be allowed to finish it. Michael Torontow has an attractively suave voice, what little we get to hear of it in song. His fine acting abilities are thrown away in making Cal a clichéd soap opera villain.

Constant Bernard has the juicy role of playing Ruth, Rose’s greedy mother, but is the most prone in the cast to overacting. Nevertheless, when he is given about five minutes of improv time, he seems not to know what to do with it. Mike Melino plays a character called Victor Garber. Garber played the naval architect Thomas Andrews in Titanic, but the creators have confused him with the actor Bernard Hill, who played the ship’s Captain. Melino is given one of Céline’s best-known songs, “I Drove All Night”, but it appears to be well out of his range.

Given all its Canadian references –Céline Dion, James Cameron and Victor Garber – I was hoping to enjoy Titaníque. Unfortunately, it’s anything-for-a-joke style, which I find tedious at the best of times, torpedoed any enthusiasm. Nevertheless, I did leave mightily impressed with Véronique Claveau and hope to see her on stage again soon, especially in a show focussed solely on her and gifts as a comedian and impressionist.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Mariah Campos as Rose (centre) and Seth Zosky as Jack (behind Rose) with the ensemble; Véronique Claveau as Céline Dion with Rose Messenger in background; Constant Bernard as Ruth, Michael Torontow as Cal,  Mariah Campos as Rose, Véronique Claveau as Céline Dion, Erica Peck as Molly Brown and Mike Melino as Victor Garber. © 2024 Marie-Andrée Lemire.

For tickets visit: www.mirvish.com.