This was definitely one of the more concert-forward Encores presentations we’ve seen in recent years. It sounds excellent, both played and sung beautifully. The cast is stacked in large and small roles, and it benefits greatly from that.
Overall though, I felt like it was hit or miss. For every moment I thought there was some momentum (Barrett’s Song, the act one finale, Dressed in Your Pyjamas in the Grand Salon), it’s nearly immediately undercut by musical theatre schmaltz and tackiness. Part of this is baked into the material; it’s just hard to make a tragedy like Titanic sing in a way that’s consistently compelling without getting maudlin or didactic. But the other, more annoying part is that it’s chock full of stars, so when - for example - Ida and Isidor Straus say goodbye to each other one last time, the audience explodes into applause for what is a pretty soft moment in an otherwise bombastic evening, just because Judy Kuhn and Chip Zien sang it.
It all just felt a bit jarring from moment to moment, never knowing whether to lean into the gravity of the class dissection and the sinking, or lean into that Good Old-Fashioned Razzle Dazzle, and I don’t think a concert presentation of it makes those cracks look more appealing. They sure do sound great, and that’s really the purpose of Encores, so that should be applauded. Now I need to read some of the original reviews, because I’m fascinated.
Updated On: 6/12/24 at 10:27 PM