Reviewed
by Will Stackman
New
music is the organizing theme behind the Tony Award winning "Ragtime"(1998), perhaps the most
durable of show by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, with a superior book by Terrence
McNally, adapted
from E. L. Doctorow's panoramic novel in John Dos Passos' tradition. Flaherty's score
draws on the rich tradition of Ragtime, the new music of the turn of the last
century, initiated by composer Scott Joplin and brought to Broadway by Eubie
Blake with nods to Berlin, Rogers, Kurt Weill, and Sondheim while Ahren's
lyrics have echoes starting with Berlin, with touches of Hart, Ira Gershwin,
and of course, Sondheim. The staging requires an epic sense from the theatre of
Reinhart, Piscator, Brecht, Welles, and the W.P.A. Director Rick Lombardo, along with choreographer Kelli
Edwards get
what's needed from the largest ensemble this company has ever assembled, for
this show, which will one of the enduring classics of American music theatre.
Their
excellent cast is anchored by IRNE Award winner Leigh Barrett as Mother in a role which uses
all her best talents, culminating in the show's final solo, "Back to
Before." She's partnered by veteran music theatre performer Peter
Edmund Haydu as
Father, last seen locally in the New Rep's "Christmas Carol" as
Marley et al. The more romantic duo of Coalhouse Walker Jr., the ragtime piano
player from Harlem and his girl, Sarah, are played by NYU vocal performance
grad Michael E. Parent, who's done the role in NYC, and Sarah Umoh, a BosCon BFA candidate. Both
bring charm, power and honest emotion to their roles, including the
heartbreaking duo, "Sarah Brown-Eyes" late in the second act.
Representing the third element in "Ragtime"'s melting pot, singer and
comedian Robert Saoud has his most fulfilling role in a long time as Tateh, the Lativian
emigre artist who starts out ragged selling silhouettes on the street in front
of a tenement on the lower East Side and winds up in California making silent
movies for the nickolodeons, all for his motherless daughter.
Primary
casting for rest of the ensemble has June Babolan as anarchist Emma Goldman,
Dee Crawford as
Sarah's Gospel Singer friend, Aimee Doherty as showgirl Evelyn Nesbit, Paul
D. Farwell as
firechief Willie Conklin, Frank Gayton as Henry Ford, Paul Giragos as Harry Houdini, Austin
Lesch as
Mother's Younger Brother, big Bill Molnar as financier J.P. Morgan, Sophie Rich as Tateh's daughter, and Samuel
A Wartenberg as
Mother's young son.Several appear in other named roles as well. All these
singers, dancers, and scene shifters join as many other members of cast, who
have small parts also, in various large numbers melding into a seamless
ensemble. The entire company numbers more than thirty, nota counting
appropriately attired music director Todd. C. Gordon visibly conducting from a
keyboard a seven member orchestra on a bandstand hovering over backstage left.
The
technical support begins with Janie E. Howland's structural set which forms and
reforms on a wide open stage backed by broken red strips against black. Franklin
Messner Jr.'s
lighting defines the show and features excellent moving gobo effects for key
scenes. Projections of mostly black and white images stage left and right,
designed and executed by Dorian Des Lauriers enhance the epic effect. Both
IRNE winner Frances Nelson McSherry from N.U. and veteran costumer Molly Trainer outdo themselves in period
detail and scope, providing the many, many changes needed. And the Coalhouse's
Ford, an excellent replica, was borrowed from NSMT. Wooden Kiwi, which handled
the set construction, etc. had to hoist it up to the second floor theatre.
One
of the earliest examples of American Music Theatre began in Boston when two
Harvard grads, bored with clerking at the Statehouse, got permission from
Longfellow to adapt "Evangeline" to the stage. With a score based on
contemporary ballads and folk tunes, they toured the Eastern U.S before moving
on to more profitable fields of endeavor. But like later efforts in NYC, such
as Herrigan & Hart, a paradigm was set for a show which engages audiences
by speaking to their shared daily journey around a constantly evolving country.
It's not really an irony that New Rep's "Ragtime" opened on May 1, on
the same day when millions of inhabitants took to the streets to protest recent
political moves against the current wave of migrants. Their new music may be
salsa, etc. but Latin sounds have been part of American music since at least
the '30s. And Ragtime as a form was codified when African based syncopation was
welded onto late 19th century piano technique by the genius of Black composers
along the Mississippi. Ultimately, the American Music Theatre includes an
honest patriotism, recognizing shared destiny, a perfect metaphor for the
fabled "melting pot," typified by NYC, but really stretching from
Maine to California, from Seattle to Miami. Which is why "Ragtime"
may become a classic of the form.