Ragtime Review

Pittsburgh Post- Gazette

Wednesday, October 27, 1999

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Swept up in this tidal wave of melody, story and passion, you might not notice that it has the brainy grace to start with spare simplicity, just a little boy alone on stage with the sound of a solo piano tinkling out an insidiously beautiful ragtime tune.

And then "Ragtime" builds with sure skill into a long opening number that prefigures the entire musical -- the richest, fullest musical epic you'll see on the Benedum stage short of the grandest opera.

In this bravura opening sequence we meet all the story's characters and get a taste of all the creative talents who make it work: E.L. Doctorow, who wrote the novel; Terrence McNally, who adapted it for the stage; director Frank Galati and choreographer Graciela Daniele, who created the pictures and made them move; and such famed designers as Eugene Lee, Santo Loquasto and Jules Fisher.

But an opera belongs to its composer, and the tidal flood that pours from the Benedum stage is its score, composed by Stephen Flaherty in conjunction with lyricist Lynn Ahrens. On a first hearing, you simply cannot believe its lavish generosity. Its individual songs link melodically and thematically into such powerful sequences that you are glad for the occasional rest provided by scenes of dialogue.

It's even better on subsequent hearings. At least 18 of "Ragtime's" two dozen songs are memorable. More encyclopedic than modern musicals, it's more melodic and varied than the recent British rock operas. This is a score like they used to write, if by that you mean back when they wrote "Show Boat."

Some may think that in trying to portray the yeasty era on the verge of World War I -- prologue to the bloodiest century in history -- "Ragtime" attempts too much. True, it rings in many a telling figure of the age -- J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington. More idiosyncratically, it invokes Evelyn Nesbit, the girl in the middle of the first "crime of the century," Harry Houdini, escape artist, and Emma Goldman, anarchist, to provide running commentary and motifs -- publicity, escape, injustice, immigration and the double standard, just some of the many interwoven throughout.

But within all this turbulence, the story focuses surely on three families: wealthy WASP, immigrant Jew, and dispossessed African-American. Closeted Mother, impoverished Tateh and prideful Coalhouse take the longest journeys. With comedy and tragedy past, "Ragtime" has the chutzpah to imagine a new family emerging and patriarchy subverted -- prophecy of an America deferred.

Though slimmed down by about 10 minutes, a few actors and a lot of set from the Broadway version, this tour arrives with richness intact. Lee's new designs have a precision that makes spareness eloquent. Above all, a talented cast keeps story and score fresh. I was particularly taken with the delicacy of Cathy Wydner's Mother and the resilient comedy of Jim Corti's Tateh, without taking anything away from the vocal power and warmth of Lawrence Hamilton's Coalhouse and Lovena Fox's Sarah.

Aloysius Gigl seems too mature for Mother's Younger Brother, but his two main songs are among the show's best. Jacqueline Bayne makes a touching debut as Nesbit, managing the pathos along with the flash.

Flaherty's and Ahrens' cascade of ballads and anthems makes room, too, for a handful of fine comic specialties. But even "Crime of Century" and "What a Game" invoke serious themes, as well. In the latter, it's ethnic politics -- this is a play where dago, wop, kraut, mick, nigger and kike make history vivid.

Now and then seriousness verges on the stentorian, as in the Morgan Library scene in Act 2. But just as earnestness starts to congeal, the score launches forth on yet another stirring anthem, "Make Them Hear You."

We sure do.