RAGTIME Reviews- Page 7

[whatever2]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 3:46pm

sorry you found my commens foolish ... i'll try to be more "important" from now on.

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 4:11pm

Thanks, P!

[blaxx]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 4:18pm

Also does a quote from the NY Times really sell THAT many tickets? WICKED seems to have survived without one.

I don't know. In all honesty, I felt he was pretty much going to propose to Chenoweth at the end of the review and that his whole criticism revolved around her performance.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 5:06pm

Why is criticizing a show for its anthems or sentimentality "an easy out?" To me, those are legitimate grounds for not liking a show, and valid reasons for criticism.

After 8

What I mean here is that it is not specific. It's all generalities. A specific criticism might be that two BIG anthems (New Music and Wheels of a Dream) are placed back-to-back. Both start small and build to huge endings. It's too much of a muchness.

It could be fixed easily by switching Wheels of a Dream with The Emma Goldman/Gliding sequence. Switch those tracks when you play the CD and You'll see what I mean: New Music starts small ends big, Goldman/Gliding starts big and ends small, Wheels of a dream starts small and ends big....THAT is programming.

I just give this as an example of specific criticism rather than speaking generally and saying "Oh it's just one big power ballad after another." No. It's just there are spots where too much of the same thing is lumped together.

The "sentimentality" card is often played when critics mean too much treacle. I don't find RAGTIME suffers from that. (SOUND OF MUSIC, now THERE is a show with too much treacle...and look how well it has done!) There is nothing wrong with honest sentiment. It's just that some shows lay it on with a trowel...like too much frosting on a cake. But that can be easily fixed by cutting it with serious drama and comedy so that the sentiment becomes one component of the mix.

See what I mean?

[After Eight]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 5:27pm

Frontrowcentre2:

Many thanks for your reply.

I do see what you mean.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 6:47pm

Now Brooklyn had too much sentimentality

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 6:48pm

BRANTLEY DIDN'T PAN WICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does that have to come up in every ****ing review thread?

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:19pm

Why were Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi there? That's so odd.

[lovesclassics]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:25pm

I don't think it's odd, given the themes and the times. Wouldn't be surprised to see our First Family there at some point.

Now if Glen Beck had been there, THAT would have been odd...

[Oldschool]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:35pm

Surprisingly, they didn't make it to the show when it was at the Kennedy Center. Eric Holder, Justice Ginsburg, and someone on the President's staff were in the Presidents booth, but neither he nor the First Lady ever came.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:41pm

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity should all see this show. It might give them all some perspective and compassion.

[Oldschool]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:50pm

Adam, the show doesn't need that kind of attention...

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:51pm

Please, they'd all call Coalhouse a terrorist and claim the show is trying to indoctrinate audiences with its liberal agenda.

Updated On: 11/16/09 at 07:51 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 7:57pm

Colehouse IS a terrorist, even more so in the book. The fact that the musical tries to make his actions completely sympathetic is one of the faults of the script -- it doesn't quite fit with that American Dream they are selling.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 8:00pm

NY1 is a Rave:

""Ragtime" is a sweeping, powerful musical about a restless period in our history. But it is also an intimate story about love, loss and growing up. It is this aspect, not the broad epic quality, that director Marcia Milgrom Dodge went after and, with this nearly flawless production, she has struck a most resonant chord.

...

For all its virtues, "Ragtime" is not an easy show to stage. It requires a delicate balance combining textbook history with an emotional depth that touches both our heads and hearts. To say that this company got it right is an understatement. This "Ragtime" is one for the ages."
Review and Video

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 11/16/09 at 8:13pm

Oh, I know Coalhouse is most definitely a terrorist (I would even argue that the show doesn't really try to cover that up), but I was responding to the suggestion that seeing this show would somehow cause Rush Limbaugh to find compassion for a black man (HA).

Updated On: 11/16/09 at 08:13 PM

[bwaybabe2]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 3:44am

According to the way the actors appear in the opening night photos, the audience must have given them a standing ovation! I am so very glad for this cast!
Now, if only I could make it to NYC to catch this show before it closes...I was so bummed out to have missed it in DC, hope I can see it this time around.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 4:13am

Was there a review in the Wall Street Journal?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 6:06am

Wall Street Journal will run on Friday. Teachout is so right-wing, I can't imagine he'll approve of the politics.

Meanwhile, Time Out New York is Mixed

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/80658/ragtime-at-neil-simon-theatre-theater-review

The musical Ragtime emerged in a time of riches, and its original 1997 production has been faulted, in hindsight, for its opulence: the literalist detail of its pageantry, which included an onstage Model T. Now the adept director Marcia Milgrom Dodge offers us a tighter, leaner version of the show that whittles it down to the sinews. The impulse is right, but the results are mixed. For in stripping away the trimmings—except Santo Loquasto’s beautiful costumes—this revival exposes the boom-time naïveté and sentimentality that always lurked in the musical’s soul.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 12:23pm

ok... the guy who plays Coalhouse... every time i see him in pictures it bugged me because he looks like someone... and it hit me.. he kinda reminds me of Jaleel White! haha

[Dagobert]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 1:11pm

Valerie Jarrett also came to see the DC production.

[trombonist]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 1:15pm

According to the way the actors appear in the opening night photos, the audience must have given them a standing ovation!

Not that a standing ovation really means anything these days...

[Smaxie]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 3:30pm

New York Magazine has kind words for Dodge's production and some of the design, but I'd call it Mixed overall, since the critic seems to feel the show's writing and concept defeat the production.

http://nymag.com/arts/theater/reviews/62196/

Ragtime has all the stuff Broadway audiences should eat up: A plot that hinges on murder, vengeance and injustice; a story whose moral seriousness glows like polished veneer; a number of fantastic voices onstage; the requisite number of “My dreams have died” songs. It’s an ambitious sprawl of a story, adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 historical pastiche about the early, heady days of the twentieth century. And in this revival—the show first appeared in 1998—director and choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge and her 40-strong ensemble cast do their damnedest to keep things moving forward with the zeal and energy of a well-tuned engine.

So why does the whole shebang come off like the product of a too-efficient assembly line? Neither Terrence McNally’s mishmash of a book nor the sometimes-syrupy songs (by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens) do the show any favors. And then there are the inherent problems of Doctorow’s novel, a puffed-out chest of a book that uses its characters as flattened symbols of racism, intolerance, hypocrisy, and disillusionment. It groans under its own lesson plan, and the musical follows suit.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 11/17/09 at 5:42pm

In response to trombone - me thinks that the standing ovation at Ragtime was justly deserved. Updated On: 11/17/09 at 05:42 PM

[musicalmack]

Posted: 11/18/09 at 6:33pm

Did anybody else get tickled a bit when Deanna on Word of Mouth called Robert Petkoff, "TaTa"?... :)
Updated On: 11/18/09 at 06:33 PM