Now Playing in a Town Near You: the Titanic
When I first heard that a new multi-city Titanic exhibition was coming to San Francisco and several other places around the country, I had to wonder, is the public really still hungry for more details of the famous disaster? It’s not even the hundredth anniversary of the sinking, which will hit six years from now. Is the show premature? Or has this ship already sailed?
But after the San Francisco Chronicle reported on the hoisting of part of the actual hull from the Titanic into Metreon, the downtown exhibit space being used for the show, my curiosity got the better of me. I had watched a Nova special on the recent recovery missions and marveled at the objects discovered by the manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles. Plus I had enjoyed both the book A Night to Rememberand the movie Titanic. If nothing else, I knew I would enjoy myself. I might even learn something new. Plus, it turned out the exhibit wasn’t new at all but has been traveling around the country for about 10 years. Sponsored by RMS Titanic, Inc., it displays treasures recovered by the diving missions and in turn funds those missions with its ticket sales. Since thousands of objects have been salvaged, they can be divided among different venues, so the show has always been in more than one place at a time. (It’s also in Miami and Las Vegas right now.)
I brought along my brother-in-law, John, figuring he would be the best possible companion for the day. An aficionado of turn-of-the-century liners, he has two transatlantic crossings (not cruises, as he always reminds me) on the Queen Elizabeth II under his belt. He can even tell the difference between a photo of Titanic and one of her sister ship, the Olympic, which was often used as a stand-in on post-sinking memorabilia, since they looked so similar. With his wealth of knowledge, I knew he would be a good judge of whether the exhibition—which promised more than 300 artifacts rescued from the wreck site, including a 30,000-pound section of the hull—truly offered anything new.
To start with, we were both impressed by the dramatic lobby entrance to the show, all gotten up in nautical blues and whites and complete with a gangplank, a model of the ship, and an actual bell from the Titanic. As we entered the exhibit, an employee took our tickets and handed us each a replica of an authentic boarding pass that might have been used on April 10, 1912, with the name and personal details of an actual passenger who was on the doomed liner.
We wouldn’t learn the fates of our passengers until near the end, where the names of survivors and the perished are listed. I felt confident that my passenger, a woman traveling first-class with her daughter and a female companion, would likely survive, as everyone knows the scales were tipped heavily in favor of first class, especially women and children. John’s ticket, though, was for Karl Albert Midtsjo, a 21-year-old Norwegian traveling alone in steerage, bound for Chicago. We didn’t have as high hopes for him, the poor guy, knowing that the majority of third-class passengers didn’t make it.
The first stage of the exhibit transports you back to the age of the great ocean liners, when Cunard and White Star vessels competed for wealthy transatlantic passengers with promises of bigger, more luxurious, and faster. The exhibit begins with the conception and building of the Titanic—the two-year process of designing the ship, down to the last detail, and then the four-year construction at the Harland and Wolff shipyard, in Belfast. Creaky wooden walkways add to the shipyard feel, and actual rivets and other nuts and bolts from the vessel are displayed, accompanied by a visual and audio commentary on how the ship was brought to life.
On completing the “boarding” process, you walk through a recreation of a corridor of rooms, including mock-ups of a first-class suite and second- and third-class cabins. I couldn’t help admiring the monastic simplicity of the steerage rooms, with their tidy bunk beds and washbasins. Then you move on to simulations of the public spaces. Actors impersonating Titanic passengers narrate audio clips, exclaiming over the relative luxuries of the second-class cabins, which were comparable to first-class accommodations on other ships, and the illustriousness of the guest list. Indeed the feeling of luxury is palpable, evident in the salvaged personal effects of wealthy guests and well-preserved pieces of the first-class-lobby lounge, such as a Louis XV-style wall sconce.
Tragic implications aside, class differences among the guests and crew are presented in a way that allows you to see the quaint humor of it all—from the menus posted on the walls (first-class dinner included “filets mignons ‘Lili’” and something called “consommé Olga,” while third class got beef with vegetables and pickles and “cabin biscuits”) to the serving pieces. First-class butter dishes were crystal; second-class, plain glass. The wealthy drank their coffee out of dainty cloisonné enameled demitasse cups, while the presumably more ham-handed steerage passengers used big flagons. Indeed, some of the most striking finds from the recovery missions are the thousands of mostly intact serving pieces that long lay on the bottom of the Atlantic. Still, by today’s depressing travel standards, all the passengers seemed to have it pretty good, up to a point.
Whenever possible the exhibit ties the found objects to personal stories that go far beyond John Jacob Astor and Henry Guggenheim, two of the wealthiest and most famous victims. Tailor’s scissors are displayed along with shaving brushes and elegant jewelry. A delicate evening bag was found with a dinner ticket miraculously intact. There are profiles of the ship’s full-time barber, on-board minister, and musical quartet, all of whom died in the sinking while comforting other passengers until the final moments. My brother-in-law remarked that he learned about several passengers he’d never known of before, including a Haitian engineer who was traveling with his French wife.
A definite highlight is the recreation of the grand staircase (I couldn’t help picturing Leonardo DiCaprio in his tuxedo), but then the exhibit takes a dark and ominous turn. You leave behind the gilt-edged promise of Titanic’s glamour for the cold reality of what awaited the passengers and crew that night. Suddenly the gay violin music is drowned by rumblings from the ship’s bowels, and the corridors turn claustrophobic and a little spooky. Photos of the engine crew—the stokers and greasers—loom large as you continue to descend deeper into the ship and its descriptions of what a day’s work was like for the men who toiled below.
Suddenly, all is dark and chilly, as the exhibit emerges onto the ship’s deck, complete with the famous piece of the actual hull. The sky above is starry and cloudless, and you can reach out and touch a giant iceberg to get a sense of how cold the Atlantic waters were that night when Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, the watchmen on duty at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, spotted the real iceberg that was about to crash so memorably into history.
As John and I left the exhibit, we discussed the ethical implications of removing the objects from what is essentially a graveyard. Was it desecration or, considering the inevitability of complete deterioration anyway, a way to preserve history? In any case, the show was respectful and entertaining, not ghoulish, and we were pleased to discover that both of our passengers—the first-class matron and the young man in steerage—had survived the sinking. Even in a story with such a familiar ending, there was still a surprise.
“Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” will run in San Francisco through January 2007. Other venues include Miami, Florida (through October), and Las Vegas (ongoing). For information visit www.titanic-online.com