A Titanic Parody at Alchemist Theatre

The British Titanic parody Death Ship 666! makes its North American debut this month with Giant Spider Productions. The screwball comedy nestles itself into the intimate space of the Alchemist Theatre. Audiences are greeted by the ship’s crew on their way into the show. They’re charming enough to instill confidence, but the name of the show and the fact that the ship isn’t completed before its maiden voyage leave little question that this is a comedy of tragedy.

Six actors play 30 different characters who have come to be on the doomed vessel for many different reasons. Kira Renkas and Connor O’Hara occasionally drip with elegant comic exaggeration as a wealthy couple looking to profit from the ship’s tragedy. Casey Ray Van Dam plays an over-the-top revolutionary electrician looking to profit from it for entirely different reasons. Anna Lee Murray shows impressive comic instincts as his wife, a beautiful and extravagantly overlooked woman named Grandma. Her uniquely understated embrace of the absurd makes for some really sharp moments. Tawnie P. Thompson is given a far less subtle sense of the absurd to bring to the stage and she does so with tremendously infectious energy that lends a great deal to the ensemble.

For her part, director Lindsey Erin keeps the madness moving with a decent pace. There are moments that feel a bit lifeless in places, but they’re never onstage for long. The script is relatively tight, but it seems to require every single element of the production to be running at breakneck speed for the entire run of the show in order to maintain momentum. Erin’s modulations in the rhythm of the comedy aspire to something more that is quite nearly delivered here in spite of the script.

Through Dec. 5 at the Alchemist Theatre, 2569 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. For tickets, visit brownpapertickets.com.