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On Broadway

 Maury Yeston is a gifted composer and a mediocre writer. His score for "Titanic" is ravishing--not just because of the opening choral piece, but also because of a memorable marriage proposal, an anthem for the third class, and a climactic number in which families are torn apart. These are overwhelming melodies.


But Yeston's sentences are thudding, redundant, sometimes desperately groping for a rhyme.

We did not attempt to make with mammoth blocks of stone a giant pyramid--
No, not a pyramid....

And here I cringe:

Be thee well!
May the Lord who watches all watch over thee.
May God's heaven be your blanket as you softly sleep.

Thank goodness we know she is *softly* sleeping!

"Titanic" is profoundly weird for a few reasons. It's a musical without a protagonist. It speeds gracefully through several days in Act One, then trains its focus on one single hour in Act Two. It features song-and-dance numbers about people who actually lived on this planet, people who died in a horrific way. (In this sense, it reminds me of "Parade" and "Floyd Collins.") Finally, it's a bit like a "locked-room mystery"; it gives us an entire world, a semi-functioning ecosystem, in one tight space. The book--by the writer of "Charade" (!)--uses thumbnail sketches of stock characters in an effort to keep things moving, moving, moving along.

Watching "Titanic," I'm frustrated that the show isn't better than it is--and, still, I'm moved. It's nice to see a writer trying something strange. The revival, now streaming on Broadway HD, uses a simple set and a well-rehearsed cast. I felt the absence of Victoria Clark--but, as a Clark Addict, I knew this was to be expected. I had a good time.


P.S. A friend has observed that the prayer above ("May the Lord who watches all....") is *deliberately* clunky. The speaker is reaching for flowery language to impress someone back home. OK. At the same, clunkiness is a dominant feature of "Titanic," regardless of the speaker. A young man cannot simply recall being shy; he must pad out the memory to say, "I was young and shy--detached AND sad--AND indoors--AND homebound!" ..... "As you plough the deep, in your arms I'll keep!" WTF?
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