‘Titanique,’ a scrappy off-Broadway comedy, has become a giant worldwide success
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — The first time I saw “Titanique” in 2022 on 26th Street, star Marla Mindelle ended the show by saying, “Thank you so much for coming to see ‘Titanique’… in the basement of a shut-down Gristedes.”
It was a killer joke about a beyond-scrappy musical, whose ticket sales started out soft at a downtown comedy club before developing a cult following and moving to a much bigger house in Union Square.
I was smitten early on. But little did I know that barely three years later, I’d also attend its 1,000th performance at the Daryl Roth Theatre, its West End bow in London and its debut down under in Sydney. I have so many of their signature sailor hats, I could start a navy.
“Titanique,” a hilarious parody of James Cameron’s Oscar-winning movie ‘Titanic’ using the songbook (and quirky French Canadian persona) of Celine Dion, has become one of New York’s hottest theatrical exports of the decade.
When it opens its fifth production in Chicago in May, it will have as many concurrent runs as “Hamilton,” a show that’s never played a single grocery store cellar.
“When we first started doing little pop-up readings and everyone was responding in an unprecedented way, I hoped we’d be successful in New York,” Mindelle, who brilliantly originated the role of Celine and co-wrote the show with director Tye Blue and Constantine Rousouli, told The Post.
“But I never dreamed we would cross international borders and quite literally bamboozle the world. If you told me a 10-foot image of my face would be plastered over the Criterion Theatre in London, I would’ve laughed in your face. But the joke’s on me because I look like Celine Dion as Jesus Christ!”
It’s hard to think of another off-Broadway entity since “Blue Man Group” in 1991 that’s had such cross-cultural success. And, being a comedy, the feat is all the more impressive. Americans, Brits and Aussies all have proudly unique senses of humor. Boffo comedies from the US often tank overseas.
Yet the deranged “Titanique,” which imagines that Celine Dion was actually onboard the Titanic and is 150 years old, plays like gangbusters wherever it sails.
Over the past month, I’ve seen the show on three continents — in winter coats and linen shorts. And I’ve been surprised and delighted to discover that it kills everywhere.
On Saturday at the Grand Electric in Sydney, a sold-out audience of 380 at what’s normally a boozy cabaret venue in Surry Hills went berserk for the Jack-and-Rose antics of the sensational cast, including Marney McQueen as an especially unhinged Celine and Georgina Hopson and Drew Weston as the two doe-eyed lovebirds.
A sprinkle of jokes have been changed or added for local tastes. A gag about the jewelry store Jared’s in NYC is reworked to Prouds here. And Stephen Anderson’s driftwood brittle, nasty, riotously funny Ruth makes a Jetstar airlines crack.
But, at its core, this is the same hysterical show that New York crowds are watching eight times a week 10,000 miles away, only with a welcome Aussie wink. And, miraculously, even more camp than usual.
The Sydney venue is a world away from “Titanique”’s 588-seat home in London — the Criterion Theatre, a classy, 150-year-old building in Piccadilly Circus.
Lauren Drew’s Celine, with Welsh wackiness, and the sublime Rob Houchen and Kat Ronney’s Jack and Rose feel like they’ve broken into the theater after hours to make filthy jokes with an eggplant and sing “My Heart Will Go On.”
Even being in one of London’s most iconic locales hasn’t caused “Titanique” to lose an ounce — sorry, gram — of scrappiness. It’s lovable and demented as ever. All the productions are directed with a consistent-but-culturally-flexible hand by Blue.
The uproarious staging, which got a 5-star review from the Times of London on Friday, is also bachelorette party central. The ladies’ cups runneth over with rosé. I suspect its cruise won’t disembark for years.
Oh, and the jeweler joke across the pond is “Claire’s.”
You don’t have hop on a plane, though. “Titanique”‘s voyage continues in New York — where it’s run longer than most Broadway musicals manage — with Dee Roscioli as Celine alongside Max Jenkins, Carrie St. Louis and Callum Francis.
To my mind, the show’s worldwide triumph is owed to three clever friends coming up with a winning idea and then making each other laugh with their irrepressible goofiness. The spunky energy of a passion project in a dingy basement has radiated off every production since.
But Mindelle — too humble! — chalks up her show’s international popularity to one of the greatest vocalists of all time.
“It’s a testament to the power of ‘Titanique,'” she said. “And to my queen, Celine Dion.”
