When the E.L.
Doctorow novel was published in 1975, its unusual premise—real-life
characters interacting with each other and with fictional ones, in ways they
were never recorded to have done—brought acclaim as well as debate about its
fidelity to history.
These
days, whatever stir it creates comes from our current moment: a national
atmosphere that takes its cues from a President spewing inflammatory
anti-minority rhetoric and policies.
In moving
from its prior acclaimed Encores concert, the production, under director Lear
deBessonet and set designer David Korins, has taken full advantage
of its greater resources. A sprawling, multicultural group of characters, whose
fates are spelled out over nearly three hours, are matched by startling stage
effects, including:
*The
entire cast rising from a trap door for the opening number, “Prologue:
Ragtime”;
*Harry
Houdini dropping down to the stage from a fly space;
*A steamship
carrying a New Rochelle patriarch on one of Robert Peary’s polar expeditions,
while simultaneously the Jewish immigrant Tateh arrives in a “rag ship”; and,
*Other
Jewish immigrants walking in a circle around the stage turntable.
Surprisingly,
the score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens includes without concentrating on
the musical genre of the title, while also mixing elements of Harlem jazz,
gospel, Jewish klezmer/folk music, Sousa-style marches, even impassioned
operatic ballads.
All of
this, along with the early 20th-century costuming, might encourage
the unwary to think they will be seeing a piece of nostalgic Americana—except
that, as we find in following the fortunes of the three families in pursuit of
the American Dream in this pageant, the good ol’ days were marked by media sensationalism,
racial divisions, and violence.
Arriving
penniless on the Lower East Side, desperate to keep his young daughter from
want, Tateh uses a moving picture book he creates as a foothold into the
fledgling silent film era, restyling himself as Baron Ashkenazy. In New
Rochelle, an African-American baby boy left on their doorstep rocks the once
stable relationship between Father and Mother. The child’s biological father,
aspiring African-American musician Coalhouse Walker Jr., is maddened into domestic
terrorism when his attempt to seek redress for the destruction of his new car
is repeatedly frustrated by a white establishment that is at best indifferent
and at worst hostile.
The soundtrack to the musical traces these characters’ transformation and, sometimes, dislocation:
*Ben Levi Ross expertly voices the pivot by Mother’s Younger Brother from purposelessness to committed radicalism in "The Night That [Emma] Goldman Spoke at Union Square."
*Tateh (played by Brandon Uranowitz) segues from protective father in “Gliding” to early motion-picture impresario in “Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.”
*The exquisite mezzo-soprano Caissie Levy delineates Mother’s progression from dutiful wife (“Goodbye My Love”) to outright questioning of her society and marriage (“Back to Before”), while
*Colin Donnell makes plain Father’s rigidity and unease with changing times and
marginalized people with “New Music.”
But the
greatest alteration of any character—and the steepest vocal demands made on any
of the talented cast—comes in the form of Coalhouse.
Joshua
Henry, previously
Tony-nominated for Carousel, makes him first a powerhouse of optimism
and pride in his work as a pianist (“Wheels of a Dream”) that dramatically
turns into all-consuming rage (“Coalhouse's Soliloquy”) at a Progressive Era America
oblivious to the grinding daily humiliations inflicted on African-Americans. And
his baritone rings with righteous power in the musical’s finale, the protest
song “Make Them Hear You.”
I came to
the musical partly because my curiosity had been aroused by watching the 1981
film adaptation directed by Milos Forman.
I was
surprised, then, by the greater presence onstage of anarchist agitator Emma
Goldman and the total disappearance of police commissioner Rhinelander Waldo (played
onscreen by James Cagney), whose function in the plot is assigned to DA Charles
Whitman.
But Terrence
McNally, author of the musical’s “book” (non-musical elements), was in both
cases sticking closer to the novel.
Too bad that he and the other creators of the musical didn’t add nuance to another element of the book that they carried over: its stereotypical treatment of Irish-Americans.
Unlike the musical’s white Protestants, Jewish immigrants, and
African-American families, they are depicted as holders of service jobs—and
almost singularly ignorant, resentful, and bigoted in a country where such
personality traits crossed ethnic, sectional, and sectarian lines.
Mother
upbraids her servant Kathleen for not moving faster to help the baby left
outside, like Scarlett O’Hara bossing around Prissy in Gone With the Wind.
And, lest we be in any doubt about the ethnicity of the cretins who destroy
Coalhouse’s beautiful car, not only is their leader named Willie Conklin but
they operate out of the “Emerald Isle Firehouse.”
In the
last decade, New York’s theater community has made a laudable effort to foster
inclusiveness and avoid offending particular groups. With a couple of short
text edits, the Vivian Beaumont could have done so again in this case. The fact
that it didn’t doesn’t speak well of their judgment.
The
practice of “revisal” has arisen in recent years to clean up older, worthy
musicals by removing outdated or stereotypical elements. Future companies that
mount Ragtime should consider doing so to burnish an already fine
musical.
