Ragtime Question

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 1/20/10 at 10:22pm

Before Daddy's Son, and Coalhouse runs into the firemen and they called him "A n-word who doesent know he's a n-word." Later, Younger Brother tries to help Coalhouse and they call him "A Cracker who doesen't know he's a Cracker."

Did McNally intentionally have the polar opposite/mirrored lines as the naive young man who only had good intentions that gets denied or is it just me?

Updated On: 5/4/19 at 10:22 PM

[StepInTime]

Posted: 1/20/10 at 10:25pm

Yes.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 1/20/10 at 10:27pm

Yes, that was totally intentional and I didn't even notice it until I saw the show a couple weeks ago, having been in a production over three years ago.

[dshnookie]

Posted: 1/20/10 at 10:56pm

If it hadn't been intentional, it would've been one hell of a coincidence.

What really threw me was that 'Warn the Duke' - I understand it, but only after the fact.

[defygravity24]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 1:34pm

^^"warn the duke" threw me off too. I get it's about WW1, but I don't get the purpose of it in the show and why Harry Houdini has to do anything with it( houdini talks about it at the end)

[Pippin]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 1:41pm

"Warn the duke" makes more sense in the novel. One of those things that you just have to read to fully get the gist of.

[Upland]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 11:13am

uhm...yes.

[Dagobert]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 11:19am

sung to the tune of a a fake Austrian folk song about a little white mountain flower:

Edgar:
Warn the Duke! Warn the Duke!
Houdini:
Kid, I'm putting a show on
Sure I'd like
something Pysch-
ic but need more to go on.
I meet dukes almost everyday
I'm a famed magician.
I can't act
On some inexact
Strange little boy's premonition.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 11:24am

The Houdini incident is a true anecdote. He was performing a trick over Times Square when the news came that heir apparent to the Austro Hungarian empire Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. In real life, a psychic named Edgar Cayce had predicted the assassination to Houdini, and Houdini later recalled it as the one true mystical experience of his life.

The assassination of Ferdinand was one of the actions that precipitated the start of World War I. Since Ragtime takes place in the time at the turn of the century several years prior to this incident, its presence in the book and in the epilogue of the musical continues the themes of change, upheaval, turmoil intersecting with human lives.

[Fanb]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 11:26am

World War I is seen as the end of an era and the start of a new age. Since Ragtime is about the end of one era and the beginning of a new one, "Warn the Duke" is a reminder in the piece of how one change of events can change history.

[Dagobert]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 2:45pm

I would like to see some reference documenting the veracity of this "true anecdote." I doubt it...Houdini was a vigorous skeptic who had no patience for the many fakes of his day. I am not aware he ever confessed to having any experience that he would describe as mystical...certainly not from a phony like Cayce.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 3:03pm

The "Warn the Duke" lines have always been a problem in this show ..Even though it comes from the novel where it supposedly makes more sense (* while the show does add other clues of Edgar's psychic abilities such as when he tells Mother on meeting Tateh and the Little Girl, "We know those people...or we're going to...")

Anyway, the reason, it doesn't work is because most of the audience -- for whom the show ironically takes great care to explain history and historical figures otherwise -- does not recognize either the reference to Archduke Ferdinand or the connections between his assassination and the start of WWI...It just goes over their heads.

It was a big mistake on the part of McNally to assume that most audiences would make this connection without having it spelled out more clearly.

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 4:17pm

^Yes.
I was literally just learning about WWI in history and i went and saw the show and understood the references. The kid next to me was like "wait, what?" at many a moment

[James885]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 4:54pm

I agree, the significance of the "Warn The Duke" line is explained much better in the novel.

The little boy's psychic abilities are also briefly alluded to in the novel. The book mentions that "He could look at the hairbrush on the bureau and it would sometimes slide off the edge and fall to the floor. If he raised the window in his room it might shut itself at the moment he thought the room was getting cold."

I believe that's the only mention of the little boy's mind power in the novel besides the 'warn the duke' line.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 5:10pm

Yes, and actually there are so many other ideas in the novel that are purposefully left out of the musical for simplicity, it's a shame that this one made it in.
Maybe it adds a little to Edgar's character (?), but does it really serve Houdini's much? Does it really add anything useful to the musical aside from all things ends/history changes...?
Again, I think it was not the best move to leave it in...I imagine it was the result of some compromise in the show's development process.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/24/10 at 11:52am

It was a big mistake on the part of McNally to assume that most audiences would make this connection without having it spelled out more clearly.

I don't think it was a mistake. I think it was a small little ? that pops up throughout the show, and then is explained in the finale. Like a Jessica Fletcher mystery. If history buffs pick up on it early, fine. Others get it explained in the end. Either way it doesn't harm the fabric of the show.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 1/24/10 at 11:58am

"Either way it doesn't harm the fabric of the show."

Yes, but in show that is already brimming over with details carefully chosen from too many in the novel to tell the story on stage, this one does not help.

It seems to be a consistent source of unnecessary confusion that people bring up with this show, and I don't think it adds very much to the coming of WWI which is explained in other ways (Father going down on the Lusitania, for example) more efficiently....

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 1/24/10 at 7:05pm

Go back and listen to how the details are connected in the finale..

1. Emma Goldman's deportation (Goldman makes comments about Evelyn Nesbit..calling her a vaudeville tart and such. In the movie and novel they have even more connection.)

2. Evelyn Nesbit's fall into obscurity - She and Houdini represent show biz celebrity.
3. Houdini explains where he was when war broke out

4. Father's demise on the Lusitania is then summed up

5. Mother picks up the story explaining how her character eventually married Tateh

6. With them, and their kids they form a new family

7. and watching from a world beyond, Coalhouse and Sarah reprise their theme song "Wheels of a dream."

I like how it all dovetails together.

For those who have a problem with the "Warn the Duke" line it pops up 3 times in Act One and again in the finale. Total is less that a minute out of a 150 minute show. I would hardly consider that any kind of major structural flaw.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 1/24/10 at 11:36pm

??How the myriad details of the story "dovetail" in the end (and I agree that they do), is not the point here of the oft-heard "warn the duke" complaints... Those details complete themes and story arcs which are clearly understood by the audiences from the beginning.
The point is rather that the relevance of the "warn the duke" lines is mostly obscure and unneccessary...They do not serve the story, but do confuse a lot of audience members for very little justification/payoff in the end.
Having been involved with the show's most recent revival, I can tell you that this is one of the most frequent complaints by audiences, who consider the Duke lines odd and distracting....Based on this evidence, I maintain it was a mistake to include them in the book.
** Just as the writers took out the original novel's story line of Tateh's wife becoming a prostitute until he abandons her, or of Younger Brother having an explicit sexual affair with Evelyn, the Duke lines could have been edited out also without loss to the main story.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 1/24/10 at 11:57pm

"Warn the duke!" is clearly a reference to John Wayne. It really means, "Tell John Wayne that he is going to make a lot of movies--mostly Westerns--and he is going to be extremely popular--a Hollywood icon, in fact--BUT he's not going to win an Oscar until the end of his career and then die as a result of making a movie."

What is wrong with you people? It's so simple! DUH.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 1/25/10 at 12:00am

Very good. :) That's funny, Miss Pennywise

[RoslynReynolds]

Posted: 1/25/10 at 12:35am

What about dem Wheels of a Dream?

I sures do miss dat Ragtime, yessim!
Updated On: 1/25/10 at 12:35 AM

Posted: 1/25/10 at 12:14pm

So you don't understand three words. Who cares? I saw Cabaret with someone who didn't understand the Nazi's rise to power during the show. She still loved it. You put it out there and hope it connects....