Ragtime Question

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

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.

^^"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)

uhm...yes.

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.

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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.

^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

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.

"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....

??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.

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

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....