Play of the week: Titanic, Southwark Playhouse, London SE1

The Titanic may have been "the largest moving object in the world" but this brilliant scaled-down chamber version of Maury Yeston's 1997 musical – with a story and book by Peter Stone – hymns the idea that "small is beautiful".

Directing its European premiere, Thom Southerland contrasts the epic story with the intimacy of the venue, generating an emotional power that threatens to blast the roof off: Yeston's gift for chorales is on stirring display.

The characterisation is a bit generic but Yeston and Stone contrive situations where the representative function of the individuals is transcended. This enterprise is on a collision course with glory.

020 7407 0234, to 31 August