In the first hours of April 15, 1912, one of the largest steamers yet built, foundered at sea south of Newfoundland, on the fifth day of her maiden trip. Constructed to be unsinkable, she carried enough lifeboats for only half the passengers, and over fifteen hundred of them perished in the glacial waters whilst only some seven hundred could be saved.
The biggest maritime catastrophe of all times very soon achieved symbol value. Symbol of man's innate aspiration at omnipotence and his overconfident defiance of nature. Symbol of unbridled capitalistic enterprise. Symbol, too, of the sacrifice of social classes to the benefit of others, as the ship was divided in three categories which were not given quite the same chances.
To Stone and Yeston, the authors of the musical, the shipwreck of the Titanic marks the end of the 19th century, its social stratification and its code of honour. Their play has no hero, the omnipresent central character being the ship. She carries along a teeming manifold lot, with their carelessness, their longings and desires, their stringency and wealth.
The sobre, respectful score follows step by step the four exceptional days that precede the tragedy, and the brutal overturn it provokes, crucially revealing the quintessence of human relations.
Sustained by a numerous cast and impressive settings, the Liège production of 2000 by Jean-Louis Grinda and Claire Servais illustrates the coexistence of ostensibly diverging individual trajectories.