Titanic at Hickory Community Theatre

A lot of things went well with this presentation. The set, the costumes, the makeup was good, and there was some really nice and compelling acting that took place several places in the play. Unfortunately, the singing always started back up again.

So it became a kind of a game. The actors pretended that they were singing OK, and you pretended that it really didn't sound too bad, and you would hang on through the awkward parts and pretend that you were enjoying the play except that something with the audio system also didn’t work well. It was too loud at times and too soft sometimes, and it distorted too much.

From my point of view there were too many stories told, many of which didn’t get a chance to come across because of time constraints, and you didn’t want to hear some of them sung so badly. Creating believable and interesting characters requires a little nuance - you can't just come out and say what this person is and go on to the next character like cutting out paper dolls. Compare this with “Doubt” in which the four stories weren’t really told at all and you had to piece them together, detective-like, from hints that were carefully dropped. Compare this also with “The Producers” in which all the actors were shamelessly having fun - and so was the audience. But in this story, what was trying to be told was how totally the world was changing from the days of antiquity into an exciting new world. It didn't really work for me because the stories seemed too fragmentary.

A musical with 40-some actors is a significantly complicated challenge for almost any community. If there had been a good "screen play" written for this musical, and it had been acted out instead of sung - with a little bit of singing in the background from time to time by an unseen (or partly seen - like the orchestra was) group of people who could sing well and carry the narrative- and segue from acting into singing - I think it could have been a knockout.