Tsao5 said: "Cut the whole Charles/Caroline story. Excise it out. Most people I know don't even remember a few days after seeing it, what their story was (there is just not enough time to care at all about these two). Heave 'em over! Let em' loose! Give the Strauss's a bit more. Give Kate/Jim a bit more (add 3 Days the song that was in the German production), have the Bellboy sing the reprise To Be Captain (not Etches....never understood why Etches had the reprise) and give all the the millionaires as a whole a few more lines."
I love these ideas. Especially the Bell Boy reprise.
As mentioned before, I've been a fan of this show since I was a kid, but was always sort of aware of its faults (Ragtime succeeds where Titanic falls short). It definitely feels like a show that had its out-of-town on Broadway, when you discover how much everyone was cut down, but not entirely cut out. Charles and Caroline were once the central story, they had the most gorgeous duet and Charles sang all of We'll Meet Tomorrow. They could have held them as the anchor or cut them entirely, but instead, they fell somewhere in the middle, which doesn't help anyone. I wonder how the show would have taken shape had it premiered after the movie. Would they have completely pushed away a central love story or leaned in? Even at its best, Caroline and Charles aren't Jack and Rose. It's all very middle. They're middle class, but she's stepping down from first to be at his level, still the conflict is all very middle. I think the crew are probably the most compelling characters in the musical, and the most overlooked in the movie.
Updated On: 6/15/24 at 05:02 PM