Review: A Stirring, Unforgettable TITANIC: THE MUSICAL at Bill Hanney's North Shore Music Theatre

More than 112 years after RMS Titanic – then the largest ocean liner afloat – struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, during its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, the public’s fascination with its tragic story remains unabated.

Numerous feature films – including 1953’s “Titanic,” 1958’s “A Night to Remember,” and 1997’s “Titanic” – as well as documentaries and TV movies have been made about the ill-fated voyage. So far, however, only one stage adaptation of the story has made it to Broadway. With a score by Maury Yeston (“Nine”) and book by Peter Stone (“The Will Rogers Follies,” “Woman of the Year”), “Titanic: The Musical” opened at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 23, 1997, and went on to win five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book of a Musical.

Now through November 10, Bill Hanney’s North Shore Music Theatre is presenting the musical in a movingly rendered, well cast, and gorgeously sung production. Captivatingly directed and choreographed by Kevin P. Hill, a 29-member cast moves seamlessly on NSMT’s theater-in-the-round stage as if traversing the deck of the ship, with each of the musical’s shifting moods brought to life by Milton Granger’s impressive musical direction and expertly conveyed by scenic and lighting designer Jack Mehler.

The large company is divided into four categories: Officers and Crew, and First-, Second-, and Third-Class passengers. Famously, Titanic’s first-class section included some of the best known titans of the time, including John Jacob Astor IV (Billy Goldstein) and his much younger wife Madeleine Astor (Emily Song Tyler), Benjamin Guggenheim (Marcus Huber), and R.H. Macy’s co-owner Isidor Straus (Kevin B. McGlynn) and his loyal wife Ida Straus (Mary Callanan).

The rank of the officers and the class distinctions of the passengers are delineated through Jeffrey Meek’s original costume design, with additional costumes for this production by Rebecca Glick. Pamela Hersch’s projection design also adds to the proceedings, helping build early excitement and later the encroaching ominousness of what is to come.

In the first act, Yeston’s evocative score serves to introduce many of the characters and set up some of the situations to follow, from “How Did They Build Titanic?” and “Barrett’s Song (The Screws are Turning),”  sung by young stoker Frederick Barrett (an earnest, fine-voiced Trevor James), to “What a Remarkable Age This Is,” winningly performed by Harrison Drake as first-class steward Harry Etches, and the full-company “Godspeed Titanic.”

And while the fictionalized Rose and Jack of James Cameron’s “Titanic” are nowhere in sight, this musical has its own share of romances and the love songs that accompany them. Jennifer Ellis, frequently seen on Boston stages including the Huntington, makes her NSMT debut as Caroline Neville, a second-class passenger with a first-class voice warmly paired with her betrothed, Charles Clarke (a charming Benjamin Luyre), on “I Give You My Hand.”

Act one concludes as the iceberg begins to take its toll, with act two left to the very human reactions of those affected, the lifeboat evacuations, and the profound sadness of so many farewells, conveyed in the all-company “To the Lifeboats” and “We’ll Meet Tomorrow.”

An especially poignant moment comes when NSMT stalwart McGlynn and Callanan, a Boston theater favorite last seen at NSMT as Grandma Tzeitel in “Fiddler on the Roof,” duet on the touching ballad, “Still.”

Adding tension to all the emotion is the anger that bubbles up in “The Blame,” sung to chilling effect by the ship’s Captain E.J. Smith (a ramrod straight Tom Galantich), its overcompensating architect and designer Thomas Andrews (a sincere Trevor Martin), and J. Bruce Ismay (a fierce Brandon Norris Murphy) as the demanding chairman and managing director of the White Star Line, Titanic’s owner.

And fear not, you won’t be alone if tears well up when act one’s inspirational “Godspeed Titanic” is reimagined in the show’s stirring and unforgettable ending as an emotional coda for the more than 1,500 people who lost their lives that fateful night.

Photo caption: Benjamin Luyre and Jennifer Ellis in a scene from North Shore Music Theatre’s production of “Titanic: The Musical.” Photo by David Costa.

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