Why wasn't the 2009 Ragtime revival a success? — Page 3

I'm a huge fan of the show, but the second act is weighed down with way too many "stand and sing" power ballads in a row, toward the very end of the show, no less.

It needs about 20 minutes of cutting overall.

Worst offender: "Make Them Hear You" It needs to go. That scene before Coalhouse's death should be played out with dialog only. It's like having Maria sing a song at the end of West Side Story. They knew not to do that. Coalhouse shouldn't sing a power ballad right before he walks out of the building and essentially commits suicide.

Is that why the show failed? Only a (major, in my opinion) detail of it, but not the full reason.

The story is large (actually huge) in scope, on a level of Show Boat or Les Miz. I also think it presses many buttons in people who may not feel the way the writers want us to feel about race, religion, and gender discrimination. In Show Boat, the race relations issue is secondary to the love story.

In Ragtime it's front and center. I think the politics of the show (and how they are presented so boldly, and sometimes heavy-handedly) effect a lot of people's opinions of it.


EDIT: (and sidebar) Creatively it makes perfect sense for Mother to build to the point where she lets loose with a heartfelt song. The character has quite literally found her voice and her life (Back To Before). Consequently, it makes no sense for Coalhouse to sing in the scene right after that (Make Them Hear You), when, at that stage, the music (so important to him initially) has gone out of his life and he surrenders. It should be the opposite direction of Mother. Definitely throws the show off, despite Make Them Hear You being a beautiful song. It doesn't belong in this story, as written.

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Updated On: 3/12/13 at 12:34 PM

Best, I thought your post was really on the button. But one thought to this comment:

"
The story is large (actually huge) in scope, on a level of Show Boat or Les Miz. I also think it presses many buttons in people who may not feel the way the writers want us to feel about race, religion, and gender discrimination. In Show Boat, the race relations issue is secondary to the love story.

In Ragtime it's front and center. I think the politics of the show (and how they are presented so boldly, and sometimes heavy-handedly) effect a lot of people's opinions of it. "

(OK, comment*s*.) I think Show Boat and Les Miz both have a lot more sentimentality behind them--and that's a huge audience hook. I don't mean to use the term here as a negative or positive thing. But Ragtime--true to its source material--does seem to distance people in a way those shows don't. I am not sure how that can be avoided (cynically, some would say it came about because of how the show was created--an idea of Drabinsky, and then the suitable people auditioned and hired, but Show Boat and Les Miz--the Anglo version anyway--were created in more-or-less the same fashion.)

That said, I think it's more the lack of a sentimental hook that doesn't bring people into the show in the first place--it is hard to sell it--more than how an audience feels when they see it. Each of the three times I saw it in Vancouver, the theatre was full and rapt, and it was made up of a lot of people who went because it was a "Livent Event," the way most of their productions were sold at their then new Vancouver theatre (Show Boat being the show that played their just previously.)

I do think Make Them Hear You is a difficult ending to get past though. I admit, on CD I'm kinda ready for the show to end before the song happens--though I like the song fine. That's where it does seem like one anthem too many to me, on CD. I didn't feel that way when I saw it on stage, although I do think the original Gelati/Lee production worried about audience attentionin Act II by, as the show concludd, putting on more and more spectacular sets for minor things (wasn't much of the library set removed for the tour as well as some of the music?)

http://www.jayrecords.com/recording/ragtime-(songs-from)/

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