City Center's 24-25 Season: Ragtime, Urinetown, LaChiusa's Wild Party, Love Life — Page 11

this is a weak show plotwise (act 2 falls apart) and the barebones production works not great--if any show needs bombast, and spectacle, its this one. the shmaltzy ending is too cute, too nakedly trying to make us all cry. theres no edge to it, and i can already here the modern woke brigade pointing out how Problematic it is. 

so what? there are enough musical treasures in the score, and the story of american society coming together a hundred years ago is a worthwhile one. 

and i cant think of the last time i saw actors so perfectly matched with roles, in a way that honored the originals but still made us think "oh this is who you were meant to be playing all along."  Henry, Uranowitz and (to a lesser extent) Levy are simply perfectly cast and doing their best work, ever. Henry vocals are show stopping- I was front mezz extreme left, and I could see the ensemble cheering and watching him sing Make Them Hear You from the wings. Uranowitz seems to have *become* Tateh--he had the room laughing and sniffling out of the palm of his hands. And theres a warmth to Levy that makes Mother familiar from the jump- yeah she knocks Back to Before out the park, but shes able to convey her character's trappedness from the outset. All three would surely be nominated if this transferred

There are other master casting strokes in Ben Levi Ross and Shaina Taub, and Tiffany Mann does a nice job closing Act I. I thought Colin Donnell was fine as The Villain--if theres way to do more with that role, im not sure what it is. I The weakest link was Nischelle Lewis, who has a lovely voice but seemed a bit lost. Maybe that just takes some more time.  Unlike past City Centers productions, nothing in the direction/staging blew me away. Pretty straightfwd, though the choreography was interesting here and there.

Its also always fun to see a City Centers production like this where the audience is half industry folk, ready to scream at all the right moments, and is so receptive/excited for the piece. its infectious and elevates the experience. by the end of the night, when lil Coalhouse runs out, the place was weeping and just erupted. those moments are few and far between.

Love the return of “city centers” … it’s like when my gamma says she is headed to “walmarts”

Shubert Alley Cat said: "Love the return of “city centers” … it’s like when my gamma says she is headed to “walmarts”"

Or the other theatre version, when my Mom calls it "Today's Tix"

seahag2 said: "Was wondering if these elements stayed because creative teams in the 90s were less concerned with profitability and could indulge in expansive scores."

One could say the original producer was famously not interested in profitability so much as a splash that would attract new money to keep the operation going.

repeat. and i remembered how to quote reply. 

Updated On: 11/5/24 at 01:40 PM

ColorTheHours048 said: "When he lets those big “with you” notes soar in “New Music,” you can feel the audience collectively holdingtheir breath. Remarkable performances, both."

The way he performed that part alone made me realize New Music is my favorite song in Ragtime :)

Two wheels and a rendering of the front grill carried on. Henry stands behind it when Coalhouse is supposed to be driving it. When the firehouse members destroy it, ensemble members pull the three pieces apart. 

You should never feel unsafe or feel the need to apologize here to express your opinion. We all have them and may differ with other posters here. Personally, I enjoy others perspectives even if they don’t align with mine. As long as we are all respectful to each other when expressing those opinions this board should never make anyone uncomfortable or intimidated by expressing those opinions, even if yours are the sole opposite of everyone else’s.

If anyone is to be replaced in the potential Bway transfer, it should be Caissie Levy.

ACL2006 said: "If anyone is to be replaced in the potential Bway transfer, it should be Caissie Levy."

So that she can be part of the NTN revival :) 

OuttaTowner said: "Occasionally in musicals, short numbers were inserted to cover extensive set or costume changes, or to give the principles a breather.
Having seen the original, I can’t recall if that was the case for the Nesbit number or the baseball number (or the Atlantic City number for that matter). I think absent sets, props or complicated stage work, their lack of utility to the story stands out.."

I've never tracked down a bootleg of the show, but did see the original production (West Coast cast--LaChanze, John Rubinstein, etc--during its sit down in Vancouver) three times and from my vague memories there was no instance where it felt like a song was used simply to help with one of the show's elaborate scene changes.  What a Game, I believe, did just have a simple bleacher set, but I know Ahrens/Flaherty have spoken about why they felt it was important to the show.  Nesbit's number was a MAJOR set piece if I remember and needed elaborate scenery itself (weren't there mocked up men on the sides of the proscenium in judges costumes or something?  I dunno, I need to get my souvenir program...)

But certainly Eugene Lee has NEVR designed sets to my knowledge that use a variant of the old fashioned "in-one" technique.

But I'm someone who will always stand up for the spectacle of that production absolutely helping what is admittedly a very strong score and book.

I remember one review of the revival that stated the same--Talkin' Broadway which I wouldn't usually quote from lol (keep in mind they seem to think the show doesn't work WITHOUT the spectacle and I wouldn't agree with that, I just think it is part and parcel with the strength of that original production:

"Ragtime [. . .] simply isn't here, where higher ticket prices and higher expectations demand higher returns from a show that, under better circumstances, is capable of soaring.

This was certainly true of the imperfect original production, which satisfied as both a stirring millennium-ending tribute and a vividly emotional rethinking of the 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel on which it was based. That version, produced by the now-infamous Garth Drabinsky (of Livent) and directed by Frank Galati, was a return to the Broadway epics of yore. Its 50-person cast, sumptuous sets and costumes, and a prevailing sense of self-importance made for thrilling takes on McNally's paean to tolerance and Ahrens and Flaherty's nouveau-patriotism-meets-jazz-and-klezmer score.

True, it all threatened to dwarf what the writers apparently thought was a story about a handful of people riding the tides of social change in 1906 New York. But what's become clear in the intervening years is that all that excess is, in fact, a requirement. Without sweeping scenic vistas, stage-filling dance numbers, and balcony-bursting performances, the show cannot support itself. Its weight is both its context and its content, the thing that prevents the oversized anthems and keening emotionalism from being too big and too silly.

Every reduced Ragtime I've seen has failed because their directors didn't reconcile the work's needed size with their own minimal budgets."

Also, as I haven't seen it linked yet, it's worth reading the Playbill song by song commentary Ahrens and Flaherty did for Playbill in 2020, which does explain why each song is there, as well as what cuts were made after that original production--as early as the national tour (which make me glad I got to see simply the other cast--Livent, bleeding money at the time as we all know, opened the West Coast cast in LA even before the Broadway cast had left Toronto, which made teen me very happy as I got to see that cast in Vancouver even before the Tony Awards--my first time being able to see a show before the Tonys.)  I'm aghast that He Wanted to Say, which I did know is currently very much shortened, was simply removed for the tour--and I never knew why the Houdini sequence was cut as it at least shows us that the Little Boy is indeed clairvoyant, which becomes a confusing plot element otherwise (the plot element that always confused me back then, ,until I read the book, was the brief lyrical mention of the Brother being caught jerking off...)

Anyway, here's that link https://playbill.com/article/track-by-track-breakdown-lynn-ahrens-and-stephen-flaherty-dissect-their-ragtime-score

EricMontreal22 said: "OuttaTowner said: "Occasionally in musicals, short numbers were inserted to cover extensive set or costume changes, or to give the principles a breather.
Having seen the original, I can’t recall if that was the case for the Nesbit number or the baseball number (or the Atlantic City number for that matter). I think absent sets, props or complicated stage work, their lack of utility to the story stands out.."

I've never tracked down a bootleg of the show, but did see the original production (West Coast cast--LaChanze, John Rubinstein, etc--during its sit down in Vancouver) three times and from my vague memories there was no instance where it felt like a song was used simply to help with one of the show's elaborate scene changes. What a Game, I believe, did just have a simple bleacher set, but I know Ahrens/Flaherty have spoken about why they felt it was important to the show. Nesbit's number was a MAJOR set piece if I remember and needed elaborate scenery itself (weren't there mocked up men on the sides of the proscenium in judges costumes or something? I dunno, I need to get my souvenir program...)

But certainly Eugene Lee has NEVER designed sets to my knowledge that use a variant of the old fashioned "in-one" technique.:..."

I absolutely get what you're saying Eric, but it's interesting that the linked article brings up an interesting point -- according to Ahrens, regarding "His Name Was Coalhouse Walker",

"It helps to transition us scenically from the Lower East Side to Harlem, and as always, Graciela’s choreography made the scene change seamless. As the determined Tateh began to push his heavy cart upstage, a group of people entered downstage, dancing to the music of a man seated with his back to us, playing the piano. The stage went from one world to another without missing a beat—literally. The man at the piano swung around and sang the last line—and voila! There was Coalhouse Walker Jr. A true star entrance."

True, it wasn't Eugene Lee's epic scenic design that needed the jump cut -- they were intended by the amazing book and score. I think every piece of music is required, and needed for its own different reasons -- be it character development, exposition, or furthering the plot. 

"What A Game" perfectly encapsulates the pastimes, attitudes, and ethnic prejudices of the time. "Girl On The Swing/Crime of the Century" provides the sense of time and place in America's development in popular culture and law -- not to mention the need and desire for frivolity during an explosive time, to try and reconcile it. And "Success" shows the push back against the rising changes in the time. 

Show pieces, sure. But needed to fully grasp the time and place of the action.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "My assumption has always been that Garth Drabinsky was a major proponent of the lighter/comedic parts of the show (Evelyn, Ford, What A Game, Atlantic City, etc)as a way to counteract the more depressing parts."

Yeah that makes a lot of sense to me (and mostly, I think that feeling was correct)  Of course McNally also wanted to keep Nesbit, Ford, etc, because the historical figures were so important to the novel.  But if you look at the impetus of the musical--Drabinsky was so taken with Show Boat after producing the Hal Prince revival and wanting to do a modern equivalent--then it also makes sense to break up the drama with comic/lighter interludes.