We had front row rush seats for the show, which was fantastic, except for the fact that we couldn’t see what was going on in the crow’s nest at the end of Act One (we could certainly *see* the crow’s nest - it was approximately six feet above our heads!), but other than that, it was nice to be so close. The show was as fabulous as I had expected it to be. I won’t go into favourite numbers or anything in this review (since it would be kind of hard to list them all!), but I have to say that the whole opening number was breathtaking, as expected, and the Loading of the Lifeboats and We’ll Meet Tomorrow were as emotionally devastating as I thought they were going to be. The part that did get to me a lot more than I expected was the finale - I was, in the words of my friend Tara, “an emotional puddle.” :-)

We'll Meet Tomorrow

I was thrilled to get to see Martin Moran as Harold Bride (and what a sweetie both on stage and at the stage door!), Jennifer Piech as Kate McGowan, Marla Schaffel as Caroline Neville (she was the one who reduced me to a puddle in the finale - heartbreaking!) and, especially, Victoria Clark as Alice Beane. I love Brian d’Arcy James, the orginal Barrett, so much that I was a bit worried about anyone else in the role, but the current Barrett, Stephen Buntrock, was wonderful, and not hard to look at, either. :-) He wasn’t quite Brian, but he pulled off my favourite musical moment (in “The Proposal/The Night Was Alive”) very nicely. I wasn’t as fond of Paul Kandel as Ismay - I found it hard to understand a lot of his spoken lines, but he wasn’t too bad. And while Matthew Bennett was fine as Andrews, he didn’t blow me away. Henry Stram was wonderful as Etches - I really enjoyed his performance. And in a very small part, I for some reason got a huge kick out of Joseph Kolinski as Benjamin Guggenheim. There was just something about him that I found highly amusing. Larry Keith and Alma Cuervo as the Strausses were also very good - I’m not a big fan of “Still,” but they made it a very special moment.

I really liked the staging of the show, especially the sinking. I had heard a lot of criticism, and after seeing the James Cameron movie, I knew that the show couldn’t possibly live up to the recreation of the ship that Mr. Cameron was able to achieve, and of course there wouldn’t be thousands of screaming extras as the sinking happened. :-) But I found Mr. Andrews’ song in the smoking room describing the sinking to be extremely effective, even if I was a bit worried about Matthew Bennett when he fell over the piano bench. :-) And I can’t believe how much they tilted that stage and the cast still managed to stay upright on it!!! I especially liked the staircase effect with the third class passengers, although I decided I was glad I wasn’t playing Jim Farrell when he appeared basically hanging upside down from the top of the stage. :-)

"There she is, towering high, broad and grand ship of dreams!" - The original cast

Titanic closed shortly after we saw it, which I think was a great shame, but I guess the producers wanted to close the show before they started to lose money, and, in their words, to have a “dignified exit.” So I’m especially glad that I got to see the show when I did. Definitely the highlight of our first New York trip for me, this show now ranks just behind Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean on my list of all time theatrical highlights. Bravo to all involved for a thrilling evening of theatre.

Victoria Clark and Bill Buell as the Beanes

Go back, or see pictures of the Titanic cast here.