Ragtime — Page 2

The Ford theater in Chicago was a better place to stage Ragtime than the theater in Manhattan anyway. Note the effect of the performers actually flooding the stage to the point that they're forced to march off of it during ATLANTIC CITY (or so I remember it that way) vs. all this empty space on the stage in Manhattan.

I wonder what Mary and Michelle are up to now?

EDIT: The other great thing I remember from the Chicago production is that they made use of the loge. I appreciate productions that require me to be an active spectator as far as looking around the theater (rather than straight ahead the whole time) goes.

Updated On: 1/11/05 at 02:56 AM

That's hilarious about the flub. As if the mystery surrounding Sarah didn't already suggest she might have been a whore...

Ragtime played next door to me (literally, I lived on the same block of land as the theater) here in Evanston, IL for a few weeks in 2003. I really enjoyed that production too except the woman playing Sarah couldn't carry her voice across the theater, and the little boy playing The Little Boy got a case of stage fright during "Harry Houdini, Master Escapist" and just stood there until the orchestra finished the song. The production designed also explicitly framed the performances as emerging within The Little Boy's mind, which I thought could be an interesting concept for a film version.

In Van it played at the Ford theatre built by Livent there--but the stage seemed ideal for the production. I dunno if it played in Van or Chicago first (I think Van) but it sounds like it was largelyt he same cast except for Rubinstein as Tateh.

E

I'm looking forward to Papermill's production.

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I've actually worked for Garth Drabinsky - twice, in fact! - and he's definitely a difficult guy. But that said, I agree with VeuveCliquot that his creative accounting manipulations were gambles that just didn't pan out. He had done so well in his movie theater business - he virtually invented the Cineplex -that he felt he couldn't lose. Ultimately, the shows he promoted were good shows - remember that the Showboat revival was also his - and not lowbrow commercial fare where the financial return would have been more certain. He's a far cry from those Enron bloodsuckers.

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erinrebecca, you are obviously more in touch with his finances than I am - I was under the impression that it was his Livent cross-collateralizing that saddled Odeon Cineplex with that debt. Anyway, I'm not excusing any of that. I just think - perhaps naively - that his heart was in the right place, at least as far as the Theater was concerned. There is no denying his personal venality or the size of his ego - both of which drove him to the belief that whatever he did, he would ultimately get away with it.

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