STAGE REVIEW
'Titanic' takes symbolic view of ship tragedy

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

•	'Titanic' 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through June 9 Diamond Head Theatre $40-$10 733-0274

This stage version by Peter Stone and Maury Yeston takes a broader view, representing the ship as the emblem of an optimistic but class-ridden age and an important turning point between eras. In the calamity that fills the entire second act, the privilege of wealth and power and the invincibility of progress come into question.

The first act is a celebration, beginning with the ship's designer exclaiming over the blueprints, "At every age, mankind attempts to fabricate great works at once magnificent and impossible." We meet the aristocracy of millionaires, the social-climbing Second Class and the steerage immigrants hoping for a better life.

Central to the tragedy are a demanding owner and a pacifying Captain. Collision becomes almost inevitable, with the actual impact occurring during intermission.

Act Two slowly unfolds the immensity of the disaster through scenes of denial, anger and final acceptance. The show's finale unites the survivors with the victims as they say goodbye to something greater than a ship.

Under Waldman's direction, acting and singing blend inseparably into a dynamic ensemble production where several performers have featured moments, but no one's part is unimportant.

Douglass Scheer nicely bookends the drama as the designer, initially exalting and lastly mourning the Titanic. Scott Moura is wonderfully despicable as the ship's grasping owner, and Bryan Bender is appropriately both physically commanding and ethically disappointing as its Captain.

Cori Vas is vocally exciting as the enthusiastic Stoker and Ryan Lumpus is convincing as the desperate Radioman. Howard Bishop and Lina Doo share a lovely duet as the aged Isidor and Ida Straus, who choose to perish together.

Melina Lillios commands the show's music, authoritatively leading the live orchestra.

Sukey Dickinson's lavish costumes nicely underscore the characters' class divisions, as does Patrick Kelly's deceptively simple stage set — where the simple rolling away of a service cart foreshadows the coming calamity, and a sudden tilt brings all classes symbolically to the same level.