Theater Review: The Musical ‘Ragtime,’ at Lincoln Center

The musical Ragtime has been playing at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater since October (with its engagement there extended through August 2), but I finally got around to seeing it last week. 

Now in its third Broadway run since it premiered in 1997, it is not a musical comedy (the humor relieves the overall tone of tragedy) so much as something quite different: a musical protest epic.

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, is matched by startling stage effects, including:

*A trap door that yields the entire cast rising 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 20^th-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.

Photo of the Day: Swings at Lincoln Center

This past Wednesday, heading over to a matinee event at Lincoln Center, I was surprised to see this set of bright-red swings across the plaza. I didn’t recall ever seeing it before. Indeed, it was only just installed and is temporary.

"Mi Casa, Your Casa 2.0" is an interactive artwork, a series of open, house-shaped frames, each roughly 8 feet wide and nearly 10 feet tall. Designed by Mexico-based studio Esrawe + Cadena, it’s open to the public as part of Lincoln Center’s Big Umbrella Festival.

The piece only lasts as long as the festival, through April 26. On the warm, sunlit afternoon when I took this photo, many visitors were taking advantage of the installation while they still could at this New York entertainment and cultural mecca.

Photo of the Day: Food Market, Richard Tucker Park, NYC

Adjacent to Lincoln Center, which I visited this weekend, lies the small triangle of land known as Richard Tucker Park, named after a 30-year luminary of the Metropolitan Opera. A bust of the star anchors the park, but it was a little harder to see when I visited because of the food market being held, which I have photographed here for you to see.

Theater Review: ‘My Fair Lady,’ at Lincoln Center

My Fair Lady may well be my favorite Broadway-originated musical. (For musicals that began life on the big screen, I reserve top honors for Singing in the Rain.) It’s not just that the “book” borrows heavily and appropriately from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, but that its songs—most of which entered the Great American Songbook long ago—long ago seeped into my memory. Seldom have wit and heart become so conjoined in the entire history of musical theater.

Those two qualities are what I have come back to, again and again, in thinking of how much I enjoyed the revival of this great musical—with the passage of time, still one of the half-dozen greatest in the history of that art form, in my opinion—now taking place at Lincoln Center. The show had already been running there since spring, and I counted myself lucky it was still around for me to enjoy it. 

As I write this review, it’s still open, but even the best things in life don’t last forever, so I urge anyone who hasn’t seen it yet—heck, anyone who has one of those days when they feel down at the mouth—to run out and buy a ticket.

Not unlike the 1964 Oscar-winning film adaptation starring Rex Harrison (repeating his Broadway triumph) and Audrey Hepburn, the show at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater is handsome, even highly stylized. The costumes by Catherine Zuber are beautiful (especially in the scenes at the Embassy and the Ascot races), and the sets by Michael Yeargan, which move the action rapidly from scene to scene (particularly in Henry Higgins’ house on Wimpole Street), are a marvel of economy in stagecraft. 

But it is in fidelity to the book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and the music by Frederic Loewe that this show is best served. Over the past few decades, changing attitudes toward sexual roles, race and ethnicity have led a number of producers to embark on ill-advised “revisals,” in which playwrights are commissioned to perform drastic surgery on shows’ “books” (the spoken, non-sung portions, often called the “librettos”). 

More often than not, these changes, rather than enhancing the value of the songs that drew backers to the show in the first place, call unnecessary attention to themselves through their anachronistic interpretations.  

But director Bartlett Sher sidestepped that danger. He left the libretto, from what I could see, almost entirely intact. But, without changing a single word, he has changed the interpretation of its famous ending (“"Eliza? Where the devil are my slippers?"). In his non-traditional way, he has adhered closer to Shaw’s original, almost perversely non-conformist spirit than any prior production.

The cast differed somewhat at this performance from the start of its run last April. Not having seen the show when it first settled in at Lincoln Center, I can’t say whether the replacements constituted an improvement, but the actors certainly filled their roles ably.

Michael Williams stepped in for Mark Aldrich as Lord Boxington, and, in a role with far greater visibility—and greater potential for triumph or disaster—Adam Grupper—the understudy for Norbert Leo Butz (Alfred P. Doolittle) and Allan Cordenur (Col. Pickering)—subbed capably for the latter.

Other cast changes were longer lasting. At this performance, Becca Ayers took on the multiple roles of Mrs. Hopkins, Henry Higgins’ maid, as well as understudy for Mrs. Parsee and an ensemble member. I would have loved to have seen Diana Rigg as Mrs. Higgins, but how could I complain about my longtime stage favorite Rosemary Harris (perhaps best known as Aunt May in the Tobey Maguire Spiderman film trilogy) in the role?

The most significant cast change involved Laura Benanti, who took over the role of Eliza Doolittle from the acclaimed Lauren Ambrose. From having seen her in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s terrific revival of the musical She Loves Me (see my review here), I knew Ms. Benanti was a performer with considerable vocal prowess and acting range. 

True, in her late 30s, she is a full two decades older than the Cockney flower girl she’s portraying (as well as the actress who made her reputation in the original musical, Julie Andrews). She’s even a couple of years older than co-star Harry Hadden-Paton. 

But producers have found a way forever to make audiences forget about age-appropriate casting for Eliza. The first Eliza, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, was 49 years old when she originated the role in the original 1913 production of Pygmalion. Even on the big screen, where age is harder to disguise, Audrey Hepburn was 35 when she won the coveted role. It helps that musical-theater enthusiasts (especially opera fans) have long been asked to engage in far more startling suspensions of disbelief.

What this production has, in Ms. Benanti, is an artist with the maturity to understand and convey Eliza’s struggle for autonomy; of her pride in not simply passing for a “lady” but also learning a new language to help her do so; and of her fury in being bullied and dismissed not just by her no-account father but by the conniving bully like Higgins and even the seemingly thoughtful Col. Pickering.

In other words, this is more than a show where attention is more balanced than before between Eliza and Higgins; this is a production which, like never before, belongs to Eliza and the actress bringing her to life in the 21^st century. 

In its fall 2007 production of Pygmalion starring Jefferson Mays as Higgins and Claire Danes as Eliza, the Roundabout opened my eyes to what had long seemed preposterous: that a happily-ever-after ending for the professor and his pupil would not only have been a stretch, but even preposterous. 

The Lincoln Center production pushes that notion even further. Hadden-Paton’s Higgins could be an Edwardian counterpart to Dr. Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory: an intellectual man-child with nearly zero emotional intelligence—and, thus, a long-term indifference to how he might sound to others. This Higgins might be missing a good deal of the charm that Harrison brought to the role, but it does underscore that the professor’s emotional journey will take longer than Eliza’s.

More than a decade ago, I took special delight in the Tony Award-winning performance of Norbert Leo Butz in the Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But he may have exceeded that here as Alfred P. Doolittle. The actor (who has now turned the role over to the equally estimable Broadway veteran Danny Burstein) made of Eliza’s father a role to behold. Leading his bar mates in his two big numbers, “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me to the Church on Time,” he is as irresponsible a scamp who ever lived. But you can’t help loving his brio—and chuckling on his predicament after an unexpected windfall leaves him sputtering about the dangers of “middle-class morality.”

With his majestic voice, Jordan Donica demonstrated with the big number given to the young aristocrat Freddy Eynsford-Hill, “On the Street Where You Live,” the great, beating unconditional love that has been missing from Eliza all this time under the thumb of her father and Higgins. Donica’s unabashed joy is enough to convince the audience that, with all his faults (as someone who’s never worked a day in his life, how can be expected to provide for her, let alone himself, if they marry?), he presents Eliza with a credible alternative to life with Higgins.

Sophisticated and hilarious, My Fair Lady continues to repay musical theater lovers’ attention. Even as Eliza delivers a curtain response to Higgins that leaves the linguistics professor uncharacteristically speechless, Benanti and Co. leave the audience walking on air.

Photo of the Day: Revson Fountain, Lincoln Center, NYC

I’ve always had such a thing for fountains that it’s a wonder that I’ve never simply jumped into one. In the case of the Revlon Fountain, in the Josie Robertson Plaza in New York’s Lincoln Center, it meant a lot to two other people as well: Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, the titular characters of Mel Brooks’ uproarious 1968 Oscar-winning farce, The Producers.'

Those two guys were much crazier than I: I mean, what else can you say about two fellows who concoct a surefire bomb, a musical called Springtime for Hitler? Their scheme is so insane that even the fountain leaps up in wonder when the two men seal their deal and doom. 

I, on the other hand, was merely content to behold these upshoots of water, smile, and aim my camera at the scene in the image accompanying this post, taken this past November.

(This was not the original fountain where Max and Leo gathered, but instead the redesigned one that opened to the public in 2009. Still, you get the picture…)

Concert Review: 2 French Masters a Century Apart, at Lincoln Center, NYC

Two Saturdays ago, I did something I cannot recall doing before: attending an afternoon matinee concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. I had seen two operas at Lincoln Center (Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, both nearly 40 years ago, when I was in college). But it was only when I saw a musical on the grounds a couple of weeks ago, My Fair Lady, that I thought of seeing a classical music concert.

The matinee on that Saturday worked well with my schedule. I can’t say that I know much about the composers featured in the program, but in a way that worked to my advantage, too, because my impressions would be fresh even as I learned more about the periods they represented: the Baroque and Romantic eras. 

David Geffen Hall, the concert venue, was built decades after the operas I saw here, courtesy of entertainment mogul David Geffen. While certainly a beautiful space, enough problems existed with the acoustics that a very expensive renovation plan was formulated. The price tag for that was so steep (a half-billion dollars) that it has been shelved, for now. However, I like one idea floated in connection with it: decreasing seating to increase audiences’ intimacy with the musicians. 

The first half of the show consisted of Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, by Gabriel Faure, late in the Romantic Era. The Adagio movement was so melancholy that at least one associate and biographer of the composer, Emile Vuillermoz, angrily denied that it was inspired by Faure’s broken engagement with a fiancée. Whatever the case, the quartet provided plenty of opportunities for impassioned playing by cellist Carter Brey, violinist Sheryl Staples, pianist Shai Wosner, and, on the viola, Cynthia Phelps.

In the second half of the concert, the full orchestra came out to tackle Selections From Dardanus, by Jean-Philippe Rameau. Guest conductor Emmanuelle Haim was at pains to communicate her passion and affinity for this Frenchman of the late Baroque period to these New York musicians. (When not wielding the baton, she was playing the harpsichord, the closest Baroque approximation to the piano.) While Faure was able to take advantage of 150 years of instrumental improvements since Rameau’s time, Rameau could draw on dramatic elements of his opera, especially a magic ring, a sea monster, and a total eclipse.

It might have been all to the good that the Rameau portion of the program dispensed with lyrics, as the opera from which it came sounds, in its entirety, like a bear to play (let alone to mount). Instead, the instrumental portions played here conveyed moods, especially Entrée por les guerriers (Entry of the Warriors) and Bruit de guerre (Notes of War).

Zachary Woolfe’s New York Times review of a concert from a few nights before, similar to what I saw (just replacing Faure with Handel’s Water Music) allowed that the Philharmonic had played with “lean grace,” but with “little surprise or delight, essential in this repertory.” 

I guess restraint is not in favor these days at the Good Gray Lady. But at least I (and, I believe, other listeners) heard an ensemble playing with precision and skill. 

It was also, I discovered in a post-show discussion moderated by Philharmonic librarian Lawrence Tarlow, an ensemble with deep understanding of the two wildly disparate musical eras on the program that day. The talk revolved around what it meant to have a “historically informed performance,” with featured members of the orchestra (oboeist Robert Botti, bassoonist Kim Laskowski, and violinist Kuan Cheng Lu) highlighting the challenges of different instruments, eras, and conductors:

*There are 45 keys in the modern oboe, for instance, but in the Baroque period there were only three, and there were difficulties with the instrument not found now.

*Kuan held up a violin bow, demonstrating   how in the Baroque, the wood curved outward, while later, with a “transitional” bow, the wood curved inward. 

* Laskowski observed that in the Baroque era, there were only two keys in the bassoon, with fingernails often tearing on holes in the instrument.

*The clarinet was only a single reed in the Baroque period, and with composers not yet writing for the instrument it was effectively not part of the music scene.

*Even without looking straight ahead, the musicians were well aware of Haim’s directions. Botti observed that her movements were still visible just above their instruments, and Kim noted that it was “not every day we play Baroque music,” so they “couldn’t help but feel” Haim’s energy.

*Newer instruments differ from earlier ones not so much by the age of the wood but the set-up of the instrument, according to Kuan. Kim noted that instrumentation is not static, but continues to improve all the time.

This concert was part of a series of four Saturday matinee post-show “talk-backs” with the Philharmonic’s musicians. Based on the informative nature of this one, I will try to attend the next one in February 2019.