Tuesday, October 5, 1999

RAGTIME FOR ALL TIME

Written more than two decades ago and set at the dawn of the century, story of struggle still resonates as it leaps from page to stage.

By Jack Zink, Sun-Sentinel Theater Writer

A quarter of a century ago, novelist E.L. Doctorow dipped a ladle into the theory of the American melting pot and showed it to be full of striations, whirling among each other without blending.

Many of those disparate ingredients still exist in today’s society, simmering into the next century. And Doctorow’s 1975 novel Ragtime, now translated into a prophetic stage musical, is armed with thundering new voices in its call for change.

The musical adaptation opened on Broadway in early 1998 after nearly six years in development, winning four Tony Awards. The national tour arrives Tuesday for a three-week run at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts to launch the 1999-2000 cultural season.

Although the story takes place in the early 1900s, the dreams and desires Doctorow found there resound across the decades, many still unfulfilled. The author thinks the music helps reduce the distance he intentionally magnified between our present and the era in which his characters exist.

“People seem universally moved by the story and events,” Doctorow said last week from his home in New York. “Unfortunately, the grimmer aspects of life reflected in the show are still with us.

“I’ve found that whenever I’m writing about the past, I’m also writing about the present. It struck me just a few weeks ago with the wrongful arrest of the actor now playing Coalhouse Walker in the Broadway cast.”

Alton White was arrested July 16 outside his Harlem apartment by police, who were rounding up suspects after a report of armed drug dealing at the building.

White, who missed several performances as a result of the incident, portrays a black ragtime musician victimized by a gang of racists. When his wife is beaten to death during a political rally, he turns violent and starts an ill-fated rebellion against an unjust justice system. Echoing Coalhouse Walker’s outlook in the play, White told The New York Times, “When I was sitting in that jail cell, I realized that my perception about good and justice would never be the same.”

Coalhouse’s story is the most vivid in the novel and became the centerpiece of Milos Foreman’s 1981 movie treatment. Doctorow was not happy with the film, which moved two other plots into the background.

One concerns a well-to-do WASP family in New Rochelle, N.Y., living an American dream that soon will fray at the edges. The other deals with a widowed Jewish immigrant arriving from Latvia with his young daughter. He’s exploited in a sweat shop before breaking the cycle of poverty to grab a share of the dream.

“The musical treats the central characters differently than the book,” Doctorow says. “Historical figures are more prominent in the book but become icons on stage. But they’ve kept the three main stories of the families intact, and the crosshatching of all their lives and history is presented faithfully and accurately.”

The adaptors are playwright Terrence McNally, who wrote the musical’s book; Stephen Flaherty, who composed the music; and Lynn Ahrens, who provided the lyrics. All won 1998 Tony Awards for their efforts. For McNally, the Ragtime Tony followed awards for his plays Master Class and Love! Valour! Compassion!. Flaherty and Ahrens’ previous collaborations include Once on This Island, which won London’s 1995 Olivier Award for best musical, and was nominated for three Tonys.

Telling separate, interwoven stories is common practice on television since the advent of series like Hill Street Blues and ER. But it’s a radical concept for a musical, especially when the narrative integrates a variety of well-known historical developments. Ragtime moves throughout its history episodically, including a polar expedition by Admiral Peary, the startup of Henry Ford’s auto assembly line and Emma Goldman’s unionizing efforts, plus appearances by escape artist Harry Houdini, vaudeville sensation Evelyn Nesbit and tycoon J.P. Morgan.

The story is historical fiction, with the historical characters and some factual events sprinkled throughout, for a social portrait of the era. Doctorow has w