Why did RAGTIME close?- Page 4

[bob8rich]

Posted: 2/26/04 at 4:32pm

Bulldog, I respect your right to your opinion as to what shows are "masterpieces". Clearly my opinion includes "Ragtime" in that list. I've been a total fanatic of musical theater for 40 years and, along with "Follies", "Ragtime" is the best musical I have ever seen or heard. If I ever see anything better in what remains of my life, it will be something incredible.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/26/04 at 5:55pm

Ragtime was a musical Lion King was a puppet show. A very entertaining show but it was an experience . Ragtime was a true musical. Ragtime gets a 10 in my book & Lion King an 8 1/2 to 9

[robbiej]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 11:02am

'Lion King was a puppet show'.

Oh how clever. Just like Kukla, Fran and Ollie, right?

What is disturbing about this debate is not so much liking one over the other. It's the terms being bandied about. RAGTIME is a musical in the grand sense of AMERICAN musicals. LION KING uses many techniques from world theatre. Those who don't understand those techniques or appreciate their place in theatrical history deride them as 'children's theatre' or 'puppet shows'.

I can understand people not being moved by LION KING and being overwhelmed by RAGTIME. People have different opinions and different tastes, which is wonderful. But people who mock LION KING as a child's puppet show are isolationist in their tastes and are truly ignorant to the power of ancient forms of storytelling. Sad, really.

[brdwaybaby17]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 4:19pm

hey robbie, although most of you got the message, some didn't because they commented about it. Just putting it out there. And how you can't think they did it well..... I don't understand. Please explain..... :)

[robbiej]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 5:23pm

bdwybaby,

The original production was a mixing of two styles that never found a resolution. At moments, the staging strived for an alienating, Brechtian tone. At other times, it attempted pure musical drama in the vein of CAROUSEL. Do I think both can exist on a stage in the same production? I don't know. I just know that it didn't work in the original production. It straddled the line between a huge, American pageant and, other times, an intimate story about specific people. As a result, I feel character arcs were not drawn fully enough and also that the big American themes weren't big enough.

As I stated, there may very well be a production of RAGTIME that would make me feel emotionally connected. The Broadway production was not it.

[brdwaybaby17]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 5:52pm

ohhhhh..... you should have seen our community production, yes, I said community. It rocked!!

[MusicMan]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 7:56pm

Ultimately, I think Ragtime was an idea that didn't belong on the stage at all. I think the authors made a valiant attempt at adapting unabridgeable material but it required the singular talents and, most of all, brain power of a Sondheim or Jerry Robbins or Arthur Laurents or a Bernstein (particularly) to have translated the property from page to stage. Instead we got another (in the words of the brilliant UK critic, Mark Steyn)"non-hit hit," meaning it runs for a while but excites no one and never really finds an audience.

[brdwaybaby17]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 9:49pm

Excites no one?? I do believe you have seen many on this board who have thought different. I know so many people who liked it, so don't make a mass generalization about it.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 9:55pm

It's the general masses who didn't come, which is my point.

[brdwaybaby17]

Posted: 2/27/04 at 11:23pm

Well, I think it has great potential, but we all have our opinions......