Broadway review by Adam Feldman
A little-known fact about the anarchist firebrand Emma Goldman is that she dabbled in theater criticism. In a series of 1914 lectures, collected in book form as The Social Significance of Modern Drama, she assessed such writers as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov and Shaw through the lens of their revolutionary potential. Modern drama, she opined, “mirrors every phase of life and embraces every strata of society, showing each and all caught in the throes of the tremendous changes going on, and forced either to become part of the process or be left behind.”
That is a good description, as it happens, of the 1998 musical Ragtime, which is being revived on Broadway by Lincoln Center Theater in a first-class production directed by Lear deBessonet and anchored by the superb actor-singer Joshua Henry. The show is a vast panorama of American life in the turbulent early years of the 20th century, as illustrated by the intersecting stories of three fictional families—those of a moneyed white businessman, an Jewish immigrant and a successful Black pianist—as well as a clutch of real-life figures from the period, including Goldman herself. It is hard to know what she would make of this grand musical pageant. Perhaps she would admire the production’s epic sweep, stirring score and excellent cast; perhaps she might shudder at the lavish scale of its 28-piece orchestra and even larger ensemble of actors. Either way, this Ragtime is an embarrassment of riches.
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Where to begin? As befits its subject, Ragtime has a complicated past. The 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel on which it is based is a tour de force of historical fiction that takes particular pleasure in interbreeding the two parts of that term. Some of the characters in his deep-focus survey are fictionalized versions of real people from history, such as Goldman. Others, to whom Doctorow does not assign names, are pure fiction: a WASP family in New Rochelle, a Latvian-Jewish street artist and his daughter. And the story of the musician Coalhouse Walker, who is driven by terrible events to take terrible vengeance, is fiction based on different fiction: Heinrich von Kleist’s brutal 1810 novella Michael Kohlhaas, which is itself inspired by real events in 16th-century Germany. (In Kleist’s story, Martin Luther acts as a mediator between the rebellious Kohlhaas and his foes; in Doctorow’s version, that role is filled by the African-American leader Booker T. Washington.)
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Many people now have their own histories with Ragtime. Here’s mine: Although I found much to admire about the original Broadway production—including its star performances by Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie and Audra McDonald—I was not as taken with it as many other musical-theater fans were at the time. Doctorow’s writing has a highly distinctive tone: fast, terse, mordantly ironical; at times omniscient, at times at a cool historical distance; spiked with sometimes wild opinions delivered in the same neutral tones as the rest. (“At least a decade would have to pass,” he writes of Sigmund Freud’s inauspicious 1909 visit to the United States, “before Freud would have his revenge and see his ideas begin to destroy sex in America forever.”) Having read the book and loved it, I was disgruntled with the adaptation by composer Stephen Flaherty, lyricist Lynn Ahrens and the late book writer Terrence McNally. Ragtime might work as a Brechtian musical, I thought, but this version wasn’t that. It was more conventional and more sentimental—liberal rather than radical, and altogether not what the Doctorow ordered.
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
More than 25 years later, I’ve officially changed my mind. I’ve come to enjoy Ragtime on its own terms and on its own merits, which are manifold. Ahrens and Flaherty’s score—the jewel in the crown of their long and fruitful collaboration—is intelligent, well-crafted and moving, with clever musical nods to period-appropriate styles and lyrics that pack a lot of information without sounding ponderous. (Ahrens cut her teeth writing ditties about American history for the wonderful Schoolhouse Rock—including, germanely, the immigration-themed “The Great American Melting Pot.”) And I’ve come to appreciate how deftly McNally prunes and shapes the material to center the trio of fictional families. Coalhouse doesn’t even enter the novel until it is nearly halfway done; but the musical’s main strands are introduced from the start, à la Into the Woods, in an opening number that is as rousing as it is elucidative.
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
DeBessonet’s elegant direction contributes to the clarity. This is the same production that she premiered in semi-concert form last year at New York City Center (and which we discussed in an interview then), newly outfitted with a spare, effective set by David Korins and attractive abstract projections by 59 Studio. The very fine 2024 design team is otherwise intact: Linda Cho (costumes), Tom Watson (hair), Adam Honoré and Donald Holder (lights) and Kai Harada (sound). The beautifully full orchestra, led by music director James Moore, plays William David Brohn’s original orchestrations; Ragtime is not dance-driven, but choreographer Ellenore Scott keeps things moving when appropriate.
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Nearly all of the principal cast has also made the move, and their performances have deepened. In the New Rochelle wing, they include Caissie Levy as the increasingly independent Mother (now landing her defiant final solo, “Back to Before,” with impact); Colin Donnell, nicely uncomprehending as Father, who owns a fireworks factory; and a sympathetically explosive Ben Levi Ross as the restless Mother’s Younger Brother. (Rounding out the family are Nick Barrington as the Little Boy and Tom Nelis, who provides starchy comic relief as Grandfather.) Brandon Uranowitz, a boon to every show he’s in, brings buoyant determination to the role of Tateh, the immigrant bent on achieving success and protecting his young daughter (Tabitha Lawing). Nichelle Lewis provides the requisite pathos as Sarah, the simple young woman who is the mother of Coalhouse’s child. These characters are supplemented by historical ones: the sex symbol Evelyn Nesbit (Anna Grace Barlow), the escape artist Harry Houdini (Rodd Cyrus), the über-industrialists Henry Ford (Jason Forbach) and J.P. Morgan (John Rapson), the aforementioned Booker T. Washington (John Clay III) and, of course, Emma Goldman (Suffs auteur Shaina Taub, perfectly cast).
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
But it’s Joshua Henry who owns this Ragtime, thrillingly and fully. Ragtime takes Coalhouse on a harrowing journey. He begins by courting Sarah and riding high on his Model T, which is at once the product of Ford’s dehumanizing approach to factory labor and a symbol of high individual status. But the law fails him when his car is vandalized by a gang of racist thugs (led by a chilling Jacob Keith Watson), and Sarah’s attempt to help him leads to tragedy. Furious and broken, he makes a Sweeney Todd pivot to revenge, demanding respect as he channels his inconsolable grief into violence. Henry acts the hell out of the part, but it’s his vocals that push it to new heights. What he delivers in Ragtime is, quite simply, some of the most magnificent singing I have ever heard on Broadway: He gives Coalhouse a voice that seems unstoppable, a voice like a river that keeps rolling along, pulled from endless reserves of breath, sweeping you up in its currents.
Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
I still have a few reservations about Ragtime: At nearly three hours, the show is too long, and there are least two songs in Act II that I wouldn’t miss; more importantly, the treatment of Coalhouse as an inspirational figure—which culminates in the righteously powerful anthem “Make Them Hear You”—feels out of moral sync with his trajectory as a terrorist and murderer. But deBessonet’s production has a dignity and seriousness of purpose that carry the day, and Henry is irresistible: When he sings “Come down to me” to a reluctant Sarah, who is hiding from him upstairs, it emerges as a wave of baritone bliss; at the performance I attended, the audience burst into applause at this line, and two of his later songs earned midshow standing ovations—and I do mean earned. Henry has been at the forefront of Broadway leading men for 15 years, but this show is his triumph. He takes one of the most demanding roles in the Broadway canon and he does it full justice.
Ragtime. Vivian Beaumont Theater (Broadway). Book by Terrence McNally. Music by Stephen Flaherty. Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Directed by Lear deBessonet. With Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, Nichelle Lewis, Colin Donnell, Ben Levi Ross, Shaina Taub, Anna Grace Barlow, Rodd Cyrus, John Clay III. Running time: 2hrs 55mins. One intermission.
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Ragtime | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
