50 Favourite Musicals: 23: RAGTIME (1996) (Stephen Flaherty / Lynn Ahrens)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1996, Ford Centre, Toronto

First seen by me: 2003, Piccadilly Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Flaherty / Lynn Ahrens 
Book: Terrence McNally

Plot:  Three groups of people experience society's changes during the early 1900s in New York: the upper-class family of Father and Mother in leafy New Rochelle, the black musicians in Harlem including Coalhouse Walker Jr. embracing the new jazz of Ragtime, while the ships bringing East European migrants including Tateh from Latvia keep arriving at Ellis Island.  Linking all the groups are those in the newspapers, the ones who have made it: businessmen like Henry Ford and JP Morgan, activists like Emma Goldman and Booker T Washington, and celebrities like illusionist Harry Houdini and notorious beauty Evelyn Nesbit.

Five memorable numbers: BACK TO BEFORE, PROLOGUE - RAGTIME, THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY, TILL WE REACH THAT DAY, MAKE THEM HEAR YOU

Back in the mid-90s, there were two Broadway musical scores that I adored from the minute I heard the cast recordings, one was Maury Yeston's TITANIC and the other was Flaherty and Ahren's RAGTIME.  Both shows had striking similarities: both 'epic' shows which also honed in on the lives of individuals with both scores featuring memorable soaring ensemble numbers alongside character solos and duets, both integrated real-life and fictional characters and, most of all, both composers drew on early 20th Century musical styles so RAGTIME's score is awash with ragtime syncopation, Souza brass bands, Jewish klezmer music and vaudeville cakewalks as well as contemporary Broadway.  EL Doctorow's 1975 novel had already been filmed in 1981 by Milos Forman and it seemed an unlikely candidate for a musical but Terrence McNally's book is successful in keeping most of the intricate plot's plates spinning, with maybe Jewish immigrant Tateh's story being the least integrated as the other two strands - Coalhouse Walker's increasingly violent search for justice at the manslaughter of his lover Sarah and the wrecking of his beloved Model T Ford by racists, and the impact his actions have on the privileged family of Father and Mother.  But the score leads us from story and story and through the years, soaring above the book and giving specific character moments a universality.  Despite the original Broadway production running for almost two years it failed to make money - indeed it's Canadian production company Livent filed for bankruptcy ten months after it's closure.  This production received nine Tony Award nominations and won four including the Best Score and Best Book, but lost most of the others to the marauding LION KING. A 2009 Broadway revival was well received but only lasted 65 performances.  I had to wait until 2003 to see it in London in a production which was an expanded version of a Welsh concert production which attempted to make a virtue of it's minimalism but just looked exposed on the Piccadilly Theatre stage, it lasted three months.  However Thom Southerland's small-scale production at the Charing Cross Theatre was more successful artistically and showed the marvellous opportunities the musical holds for the performers playing the roles of Coalhouse, Sarah and Mother.  The Broadway cast recording is one of my most-played... and stand back when I belt out BACK TO BEFORE!  I still wonder what the Communist agitator Emma Goldman, who was exiled from America, would feel if she knew she featured in two Broadway musicals, RAGTIME and Sondheim's ASSASSINS?

Here the original Broadway cast - including the late Marin Mazzie as Mother, Mark Jacoby as Father, Audra McDonald as Sarah, Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coalhouse and Peter Friedman as Tateh - deliver that wonderful opening number at the Tony Awards:

RAGTIME at Charing Cross Theatre - history keeps happening...

Director Thom Southerland is adept at choosing to direct musicals which might give other directors pause.  At the Southwark Playhouse, where he has worked most regularly recently, he has staged GRAND HOTEL, ALLEGRO, GREY GARDENS and TITANIC, four musicals that would never turn up in an established West End theatre; some need too big a cast or would be deemed too risky at the box-office.

His appointment to be artistic director of the previously troublesome off-West End Charing Cross Theatre this summer has given him the chance to revive his production of TITANIC (which has now won 6 off-West End theatre awards) and, after a hiccup with the cancellation of the second show - the nostalgic RADIO TIMES - Southerland has chosen another tricky musical as his next production, the Tony Award-winning RAGTIME.

Based on EL Doctorow's groundbreaking novel, which mixed fact and fiction to show the powder-keg of events in the New York of 1900, RAGTIME opened in 1998 which, although it ran for two years, did not recoup due to the blockbuster production costs.  The show has faults; Terrence McNally's book struggles at times with focus as he has to corral fourteen main and supporting characters throughout, there is certainly too much emphasis on the growing friendship of Mother and immigrant Tateh rather than the more powerful storyline involving black ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr.'s terrorist revenge attacks.

Although, as a whole, the score is a glorious explosion of turn-of-the-century pastiche numbers and tear-jerking ballads, Lynn Ahrens' lyrics sometimes overstate themselves in contrast to Stephen Flaherty's consistently excellent music.  But be that as it may, I have been a huge fan of the score since I first heard the original cast recording and again, it was fantastic to hear it 'live' on stage.

Sadly my main drawback with Southerland's otherwise hugely enjoyable production is the return of the dreaded "actor as musician" so we have the absurd directorial choice of Joanna Hickman as Evelyn Nesbitt singing her excellent solo "Crime of The Century" hidden behind a double bass and the only thing that the actor playing Harry Houdini wrestles out of is the accordion permanently strapped to his chest.  It was profoundly irritating, a hired band could easily have been stowed in one of the side balconies as the Donmar does when it stages musicals.

Among those not brandishing instruments were some very good performances: Anita Louise Combe was a wonderfully warm and sympathetic Mother and she literally rose to the occasion (while standing on a piano) to belt out the character's big belt song "Back To Before", the oddly angular Valerie Cutko, although physically wrong for the role, was very good as the communist firebrand Emma Goldman - who coincidentally said "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution" which really should have been a title of a song for her.  I have always wondered how the communist anarchist Goldman would react had she known that she would feature in two Broadway musicals (the other being Sondheim's ASSASSINS)?

Ako Mitchell was an imposing presence as the vengeful Coalhouse Walker Jnr. but was sometimes a bit wonky in his higher notes however Jennifer Saayeng as his beloved and doomed Sarah was vocally very strong and gave a very centred and moving performance.  I liked Jonathan Stewart's Younger Brother who finally finds a purpose in blowing things up and there was a scene/song-stealing turn from Seyi Omooba (in her professional debut) who brought some serious church to the mournful "Till We Reach That Day".

Sadly for me two lead performances failed to really connect: Gary Tushaw as the Jewish immigrant Tateh was too overwrought (why did he think he was singing in the Albert Hall?) and Earl Carpenter was a touch too anonymous as Father, a shame as there is much to be mined in this character who refuses to acknowledge that his world has changed until it is too late.  A special mention too for Howard Harrison's atmospheric lighting design.

You have until December 10th to experience the majestic sweep of the Flaherty/Ahrens score - surely one of the greatest in the last 20 years - as well as Southerland's ingenious production.

Watching the show it slowly dawns on you that in these days of urban terrorism, distrust of immigrants, tawdry celebrity, America's questioning of itself and Black Lives Matter, the concerns of 1900 and RAGTIME are not that far away.  Highly recommended.