What was cut out of the Ragtime revival?

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:04am

I'm sorry if this has been covered. Please don't make a snarky "SEARCH FEATURE" response if it was discussed on post seventeen on page twelve of another Ragtime thread that I was never going to find.

I've read that about fifteen minutes of material was cut out of "Ragtime" for the current/soon-to-be-over revival. This is the only production I am familiar with (and I really liked it). I am also a huge fan of Doctorow's book. Does anyone know what this material was that was in the original production but not in the new one? Did any of it feature J. P. Morgan or Houdini or other minor characters who were more prominent in the novel? Any complete scenes excised or just trims within scenes?

Thanks!

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:14am

Verses in Crime of the Century, Henry Ford, and The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square, He Wanted to Say, and Atlantic City. Those are the biggest, most noticeable cuts.

Updated On: 1/3/10 at 01:14 AM

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:15am

They cut the best part of He Wanted to Say. But I guess we're lucky they even kept that optional song!

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:21am

Interesting...thanks. I guess it's mostly on the OBCR, then? I just wanted to make sure there weren't any major story points or anything that had been dropped.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:23am

Also that "Harry Houdini, Master Escapist" number that began Act Two. Didn't miss it, tho.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:27am

Yes, that's been gone since the original production. Harry Houdini, Master Escapist is no longer in the licensed version of the show, so they technically didn't cut it.

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 1:49am

The set.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 2:50am

WHY is everyone saying the set is "cut down." It is not. This is the set they designed for this production. Where is it written that you have to put a full living room set on stage? Why are people so bothered that the car and the piano are in presented in outline form?

Do people no longer have imaginations?

I saw the original and I saw the revival. Both were very well done. I was not looking for a carbon copy of the original.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 2:54am

The breath of life?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 3:33am

What did they cut from "Henry Ford"? The song is short to begin with.

[winston89]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 4:25am

The only cuts I do notice took place during The Crime Of The Century and The Night That Goldman Spoke At Union Square. I am having trouble pinpointing what cuts were made for Atlantic City or He Wanted To Say and Henry Ford.

And I agree with frontrow. That there is nothing that says that the sets had to be as extravagant as they were during the original Broadway production.

[desiree armfeldt]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 8:38am

ahh just a joke! and a funny one. I laughed!

But yes, this set was created to support THIS production, so both RAGTIME sets should inherently be different.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 12:39pm

For "The Night that Goldman Spoke at Union Square" they cut the: "Two men meeting for a moment" part. Which was upsetting!

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 1/3/10 at 10:58pm

Thanks for all the responses.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 11:20am

"Why are people so bothered that the car and the piano are in presented in outline form?"

Because when you're paying $120 to see a Broadway musical, you shouldn't get cheap prop pieces. The problem I had with the piano is it has no keys (or representation of keys). A minor point, obviously, but it is distracting. In a community theater (or regional) most audience members wouldn't think twice about it. But on Broadway many in the audience are asking "why isn't it a real mock-up of a piano?"

The car, in my opinion, is just badly executed, and comes off looking cheap. Stylistically it doesn't match anything in the show (the piano, even sans keys, at least mostly works). The car looks ridiculous, and the actor "driving" it looks stupid walking it off the stage like Fred Flintstone.

"Do people no longer have imaginations?"

I'm sure they do. But I can stay home and read the novel Ragtime for the cost of the book and let my imagination run wild. This show is supposed to be a fully formed idea.

"I saw the original and I saw the revival. Both were very well done. I was not looking for a carbon copy of the original."

I agree. But it is still very much a regional production. And while local audiences might be able to appreciate them, tourists don't want to spend $120 on a ticket for a show that their local theater can produce with equal quality for less than half of that.

[NotYourMemories]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 11:23am

Quite a bit of what was cut can be heard on the Broadway soundtrack CD.

Sorry frontrowcentre2, I couldn't resist. I am of course referring to the cast album - (I know it wasn't a movie!)

If you're really a Ragtime fan it's worth getting a copy of the "Songs From Ragtime" CD recorded in Toronto before the first production. You'll hear a completely different bridge for "He Wanted To Say" along with a wonderful long-ago cut number for Houdinin and Nesbit called "The Showbiz".

I'm surprised to hear "He Wanted To Say" was ever considered an optional number. Perhaps this is because Bobby Steggert's performance makes Younger Brother such an important character in the current production. The original version of this song was much longer, with an entire section leading up to Coalhouse saying "We have rules here." Now the entire song leads up to Younger Brother's punch-line "I know how to blow things up", which I think works better.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 12:11pm

Fosse76, then the same could be said about the ALNM revival. Talk about a scaled down production. I'd rather look at a scaled down car and piano to hear a score played by 28 pieces; but that's just me.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 1:58pm

Thanks, Fosse....it underscores my belief that the higher ticket pries aren't just a financial deterrent. For $125 (or more) audiences expect - demand - elaborate scenerey, which I think is limiting.

One of my all-time favourite shows was the original production of GRAND HOTEL - The Musical. And even then, with the top price around $50 then there was grumbling - and a FORBIDDEN BROADWAY parody. ("What kind of hotel is this? There are no walls in my room. Only a row of chairs.") If they revived GRAND HOTEL with its original design and staging (Oh god I wish!)would audiences balk at paying $125 for a show with virtually no set?

Are we are also spoon-feeding audiences, raised on movies, who expect every scene to be furnished down to the smallest detail.
Years ago Hal Prince gave a talk where he explained that one of his favourite sets is a table and 2 chairs. With that you can be anywhere: A street cafe in Paris, a busy restaurant, a tenement kitchen. All done in collaboration with the performers and the audience filling in the details.

As I have said in the past, my litmus test for the quality of any show is to determine how well it would work with a minimalist staging: The shows that work in that environment are the ones with strong writing. Massive sets and special effects just act as camouflage.

We are losing that vital element of imagination that allows a theatre audience to suspend disbelief and buy into a stage illusion.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 8:21pm

"As I have said in the past, my litmus test for the quality of any show is to determine how well it would work with a minimalist staging: The shows that work in that environment are the ones with strong writing. Massive sets and special effects just act as camouflage"

Well said, and a sentiment I couldn't agree more with.

I'm hoping to be able to catch the show this week before it is gone.

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 8:24pm

"Fosse76, then the same could be said about the ALNM revival. Talk about a scaled down production. I'd rather look at a scaled down car and piano to hear a score played by 28 pieces; but that's just me."

- Just curious, but have you seen the ALNM revival?

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 9:24pm

ljay, I did. Why do you ask?

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 9:31pm

Curiosity.

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 10:05pm

Threadjack:

The skeletal presentation of the car and piano, which reflect the skeletal scaffolding that constitutes the set makes a POINT, and that point is NOT "we didn't want to spend the money on something more lavish".

RAGTIME is not realism. If it were, Houdini and Nesbit wouldn't be in it in the capacity in which they appear. What makes the show beautiful is that it is MORE than realism, and by being more, it can encompass the history of our nation.

The decision to present only the essential--the outline--is what allows the production to live up to the epic promise of the book and score.

The car and the piano are symbols. Their meaning is not just literal. By being outlines, rather than hyper-realistic replicas of period specific machines and instruments, they evoke EVERY car and EVERY piano because this is EVERYONE's story.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 10:28pm

Also, isn't RAGTIME essentially a "memory" piece with Edgar (the Little Boy - and named as a stand in for E.L.Doctorow) narrating the prologue and epilogue?

If you follow that thought, then yes the original maybe was overproduced, yet I do not recall ever sitting there thinking it was excessive when I saw it in 1996 & 1998. (OK maybe the pinwheels in the curtain call were a bit much, but after all Father did run a fireworks factory.)

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 1/4/10 at 10:30pm

Exactly, frontrowcentre.

In some respects, RAGTIME like musical Williams, and his stage directions sure as hell do not read like a catalog of furnishings for a perfectly realistic living room. It's all about the suggestion of the past, not the literal reliving of it.