‘Titanic’ musical review: Tragic tale is sweeping and thrilling — even without Jack and Rose

The RMS Titanic’s doomed 1912 voyage did not make a strong argument for hugeness.

Quite the contrary.

But the sweeping concert revival of Maury Yeston’s musical “Titanic” at New York City Center sure does. With a score as lush and transportive as this one, bigger is definitely better.

Don’t get me wrong. About a decade ago, I saw a splendid, reduced version of the show at Chicago’s Theater Wit that unearthed the humanity and focus in Peter Stone’s sprawling book that features some 40 distinct characters.

However, the massive, 30-person orchestra of the Encores! series, which presents old Broadway shows in their full auditory glory, is the real heart of the ocean.

That forceful wall of sound created by music director Rob Berman and his terrific musicians, who are situated high up on a platform above the stage, justifies why the ill-fated passengers aboard the Titanic are crooning tunes at all.

4

With music alone (Encores! ain’t known for sets), “Titanic” conjures the majesty of “the largest moving object in the world” as it hurdles dangerously toward New York, as well as the unspeakable tragedy of man’s folly leading to the deaths of 1,500 people. 

Amusingly, Yeston’s Best Musical Tony Award winner debuted on Broadway a few months before James Cameron’s epic romance movie became a worldwide phenomenon, leading to decades of confusion.

To be clear, there’s no Jack and Rose here, or even romantic leads really. You can hear “My Heart Will Go On” nightly at the 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.

4

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.

4

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. Rather it’s a touching, smart tribute to the lives lost — less about the horrible sinking than the flesh-and-blood people.

4

And now for the elephant — or, well, the ship — in the room: Should this “Titanic” have a future life like Encores’ “Into the Woods” and “Parade” did? Seemingly every production in this series creates Broadway buzz now, whether it’s deserved or not.  

But “Titanic,” directed by Anne Kauffman, is not the sort of staging that would make sense in a sit-down a few blocks away. This concert is constructed, as it should be, to grandly showcase the blissful score. I’d love to see “Titanic” back on Broadway. But this one should live out the rest of its days on 55th Street.

This is perhaps odd to say of a composer who has two Best Musical Tony Awards (“Nine” and “Titanic”) and another nomination (“Grand Hotel”), but Yeston doesn’t get his due on Broadway.

Whereas so many composers repeat themselves ad nauseam, Yeston crafts diverse, subverting scores that whisk us to 1960s Venice, an opulent 1920s Berlin escape and an ocean liner that was briefly home to all walks of life. 

The man is deserving of more encores — and not just from Encores!