About the Play:

Titanic is a one-act comedy by Christopher Durang. A farce by one of American theater's most spirited and original writers, which finds high comedy in the zany doings of an unlikely group of passengers aboard the doomed Titanic. Epic and majestic, with moments of heartbreaking intimacy, Titanic captures the triumph and tragedy of the hopeful passengers on the ill-fated Ship of Dreams.

Titanic chronicles the final, hedonistic days of a dysfunctional family on the famously doomed ship. Amid a tangle of changing identities – and sometimes sexes – the action of the play centres on an American family, the well-to-do Tammurais, who are travelling aboard the Titanic. Comprised of father, mother, brother and sister (or is she actually the Captain's daughter?) the Tammurais undergo a series of sexual permutations as they reveal all manner of shocking secrets and bizarre fetishes while awaiting the iceberg which, somehow, the ship seems unable to find. The mother tells the father that their son is not really his; the father confesses to the mother that their daughter is not really hers; the daughter mysteriously becomes an aunt who is having an affair with her sister (when she isn't seducing her nephew); while the father and son compete vigorously for the affections of a handsome young sailor, who is hard put to choose between them. Eventually the ship does go down, taking its odd assemblage of passengers with it, but leaving behind a remarkable array of original thoughts on the nature of the modern American family and the undeniably disturbed society which nurtures it.

Titanic was first presented in 1974 at the Experimental Theatre at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, while the author was a student, starring classmate Sigourney Weaver. Its New York City premiere was in 1976 at the Direct Theatre off-off-Broadway, transferring to off-Broadway to the Van Dam Theatre. The play has been performed in regional, fringe festival, and college theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 4 male

What people say:

"This is a wild drawing-room farce that happens to take place at sea. The humor is untamed, a nonstop flow of outrageous jokes, puns and burlesque byplays?" — New York Times

"…a merry and (innocently) obscene farce." — New York Daily News

About the Playwright:

Christopher Durang (1949-2024) was an award-winning American playwright and actor. One of the most popular playwrights of the 20th century, his plays have been produced on and off-Broadway, in regional theatres around the US and abroad. He received a B.A. in English from Harvard College and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Yale School of Drama. He was the co-chair of the Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School in Manhattan from its inception in 1994 to 2016.