Houston Chronicle Review

By EVERETT EVANS

Copyright 1999 Houston Chronicle

The great American novel becomes the great American musical in Ragtime.

Even in the necessarily scaled-down production that launched its national tour Tuesday night at Jones Hall, this award-winning stage epic still impresses as the finest new musical in more than a decade. The production and cast may be smaller, but the show's heart is as big as ever.

Ragtime is one of the few musicals of recent years that can withstand comparison to classics such as "Show Boat", "Porgy and Bess", "Oklahoma! "and "West Side Story". Like those milestones, it follows the classic formula: a compelling story peopled by characters you care about, told through an exhilarating score that lingers in the memory. Like them, Ragtime expresses something basic about the American experience.

Ragtime has the feel of a classic -- even as it takes advantage of up-to-the-minute innovations in composition and stagecraft.

E. L. Doctorow's panoramic novel depicting America at the dawn of this century provides ideal source material -- and daunting challenges. His multifaceted story makes Ragtime the quintessential American musical, while its vast scope makes it perhaps the most ambitious one ever. That the musical version succeeds where it could so easily have gone awry is tribute to librettist Terrence McNally, lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty, who have re-told Doctorow's story brilliantly in musical theater terms.

McNally's book is a model of conciseness and precision, gracefully encompassing vast swatches of exposition through his skillful use of first-person narrative by the characters. He keeps the focus squarely on the three disparate families whose lives unexpectedly intertwine amid the volatile social currents of the early 1900s: the affluent suburban WASP clan headed by Father and Mother; Harlem pianist Coalhouse Walker, his lover Sarah and their baby; and newly arrived Latvian immigrant Tateh and his motherless daughter.

McNally has narrowed the supporting cast of real-life figures from Doctorow's novel, retaining a half-dozen icons who interact with the protagonists, including vaudeville star Evelyn Nesbitt, escape artist Harry Houdini, anarchist reformer Emma Goldman and educator Booker T. Washington. McNally treats his characters with intelligence and compassion, bringing real power to key dialogue scenes, such as the confrontation in which Father argues with Mother's Younger Brother.

Ragtime takes wing in its score, which ranks with Broadway's finest. Flaherty has captured the jaunty exuberance and wistful yearning of the ragtime era. Whether in rousing production numbers, delicate ballads or blazing anthems, his work is distinguished by a gift for pure, timeless melody in the manner of Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers.

Ahrens' lyrics -- cogent and terse, ironic or passionate -- match Flaherty's music and McNally's book perfectly. Like Oscar Hammerstein, Ahrens does not shy from social awareness. She expresses the character's feelings with strength and simple poetry. The combination of her thoughtfully chosen words with Flaherty's soaring music gives the characters humanity and nobility.

The show unfolds as a succession of great theater songs, from the nine-minute opening title number through "Journey On," the trio for Mother, Father and Tateh; Sarah's haunting lament "Your Daddy's Son"; the exquisite courtship sequence "New Music"; Coalhouse and Sarah's stirring "Wheels of a Dream"; the aching first act finale "Till We Reach That Day"; and the forceful final statements for Mother and Coalhouse, "Back to Before" and "Make Them Hear You."

The score finds time for more delicate expressions, as in two lovely second act duets: "Our Children," for Mother and Tateh; and "Sarah Brown Eyes", a moving flashback to Coalhouse and Sarah's first meeting. Comic, up-tempo numbers supply humor and lift -- as in Evelyn's giddy "Crime of the Century" vaudeville turn and "What a Game!", in which Father seeks respite by taking his Little Boy to a baseball game, but finds himself unable to adjust to the coarsening of ballpark behavior.

In re-creating his original direction, Frank Galati again gives Ragtime epic sweep, emotional clout and cinematic fluidity. His great achievement is that this complex show never falters in its clarity and steady pace. While he has re-configured some scenes to suit the smaller physical production and reduced forces onstage (the tour boasts a cast of 43, down from Broadway's 58), the production still abounds in striking stage pictures, from the colliding phalanxes of different ethnic groups in the opening, to the parade of silhouetted figures in the finale.

Graciele Daniele's vivid choreography catches the spirit of the era, neatly differentiating the key groups through characteristic movement.

While this tour loses some of the imposing grandeur of the Broadway version, it gains in simplicity and intimacy. There are fewer extraneous wonders to pull the focus from the central figures -- and after all, Ragtime is chiefly about story, not spectacle.

This cast is uniformly excellent, all the leads acting with conviction and singing the demanding score expertly. While none has the superstar charisma of Broadway leads Brian Stokes Mitchell or Marin Mazzie, this team impresses as a more perfectly balanced ensemble. No one principal steals the show, yet each has moments of glory.

Lawrence Hamilton makes a powerhouse Coalhouse. Dynamic, proud and unyielding, he manifests (as his song puts it) that "fire in his soul." Jim Corti is a tough, resilient Tateh, suffering but never self-pitying in his struggling phase, still in touch with his hard-scrabble origins once he rises to success.

Cathy Wydner gives us a gracious, sensitive, generous-spirited Mother, conveying the character's gradual self-awakening with grace and wonder. Lovena Fox is passionate and warm-hearted as Sarah, believably spanning the role's extremes from distraught to serene.

Stephen Zinnato conveys Father's stalwart conventionality, as well as the poignancy of the decent but limited man who cannot accommodate change. Aloysius Gigl forcefully conveys the pain of Younger Brother's search for meaning and the passion of his newfound political causes. As the family's precocious and prescient Little Boy, Ryan O'Connell is fine, entirely natural in his startling candor.

Cyndi Neal brings driving fervor to crusading Emma Goldman. Michele Ragusa is piquant and vivacious as scandal-propelled celebrity Evelyn Nesbitt. Allan Louis plays Booker T. Washington with solemn dignity and purpose. Eric Olson's lithe Houdini, Jay Bodin's buoyant Henry Ford, and Jenell Brook Slack, as Tateh's sweetly stoic Little Girl, are among other neatly etched portrayals. The singing and dancing ensemble performs with vigor and feeling throughout.

In its streamlined form, Eugene Lee's production design is serviceable rather than awesome. The child's erector set outline around the proscenium and some set pieces never quite succeeds as an alternative to the Penn Station frame of the original. But the evocative use of period photos and postcards, along with simple sky backdrops, create some lovely pictures, especially as enhanced by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer's dramatic lighting. Santo Loquasto's painstakingly detailed parade of rags to riches costumes remains a major asset.

I suppose some could carp (as some have) that Ragtime is too full a plate -- an embarrassment of riches. Yet this big and busy show never loses its clarity or purpose, never lapses into clutter or muddle. It would be churlish to complain simply because Ragtime has a lot to say -- especially when so many recent shows have had so little.

As an ideal culmination of the century in which the American musical established itself as a major art form, Ragtime sets a standard of excellence to which future shows might well aspire.

If you see only one musical this century, or next, make it Ragtime.