By John Farrell Special to U-Entertainment
'Ragtime' is worth your time

As we plow through the first decade of a new century, we probably don't have a lot of time to consider how history will see our struggles.

No doubt all of those people who were living and struggling in the first decade of the last century lived much the same way. Putting food on the table, washing clothes, enjoying music and art É those are all part of life. Historic contemplation is for the next generation.

Novelist E.L. Doctorow had the time for that kind of contemplation, and his novel "Ragtime' took a fictionalized look at the first decade of the "American' century, the 20th century, and it became a best seller, a successful film and a Broadway musical.

You can argue that novel or film was the best way to tell Doctorow's complicated fable of the American historical experience, a story that involves the rise of black America, the huge influx of eager immigrants from Europe and the lifestyles of the rich and secure white upper crust. But with a name like "Ragtime," the story cried out to be a musical, filled with the syncopated rhythms of the music that took the country by storm in the 1900s and soon turned into jazz.

"Ragtime the Musical," with music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, proved a hit on Broadway and in several national tours. Now Long Beach's Musical Theatre West, mounting its largest production ever, is bringing "Ragtime' to the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in a production that began last weekend and continues through March 6.

That size, and the rhythmic intensity and simple joy of Flaherty's music, are the first things you'll notice in the production, which opened Saturday night to a packed house. There are dozens of singers on stage, all in elegant period costumes, setting the stage for Doctorow's fictional story that brings together historical characters like J. P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington and Emma Goldman to tell the intertwined stories of a black musician, a Jewish immigrant and an American upper-class family, all caught in the often-violent social clashes of the period.

The central character in "Ragtime' is Coalhouse Walker Jr. (David Jennings), the black ragtime musician who earns success in his music and brings his life together by finding Sarah (Nicole Pryor), the black maid who has borne his son. She has been taken in by a successful white family that must struggle with its attitudes toward blacks and immigrants as it finds its comfortable world assaulted by the changes society is undergoing: massive immigration, union agitation and demands for racial equality.

Jennings, who has played Coalhouse before (in the original Los Angeles production and the first "Ragtime' national tour), has the character in his soul. It is a star turn, nuanced in every detail. Jennings sings and plays the piano with lively energy, but, more importantly, he conveys both Walker's sense of outrage when he is attacked for being "uppity' and his sense of profound, simple dignity even when he turns to violence to right the wrongs against him.

This is also the story of Mother (Victoria Strong), the rich young woman whose sympathy for Sarah and Coalhouse and the whole new world reflects strongly against Father (Doug Carfrae), who only grudgingly begins to understand the changes to his stable world. Sarah and Father and Mother form a triangle of love and conflict and growing empathy that suggests how things might get better in America.

Tateh (Eric Anderson) and his little daughter (Becky Golden) are Jewish immigrants fresh from Europe, looking for the promised streets of gold. Anderson is moving in his love for his daughter, and in his determination to find success, which he does in the budding film industry.

As Coalhouse moves from his idyll of happiness to a violent desire for revenge, and as Mother and Father move toward a new understanding of what their country is becoming, the musical gives us small vignettes of the movers and shakers of the period.

Evelyn Nesbit (Monica Schneider), the showgirl who was the Paris Hilton of her time, dances into view occasionally to introduce a little light humor. Washington (Jimmer Bolden) provides dignity and a deep feeling of the need for racial understanding. Harry Houdini (Richard Bermudez), providing just bits of his death-defying escapes, and other characters, come into the story for brief moments merely to suggest the story of the times in which the musical is set.

All this historical detail seemed overwhelming in the film version of this story, but in a musical, suggestion is part of the art, and the essential story of the three sets of characters, a story of love, struggle and even redemption, is never buried by historical detail.

Director Paul David Bryant has an eye for the telling detail, for small matters that carry much importance, and the choreography he has created for the show is always an integral part of the whole. Musical Director Darryl Archibald and the "Ragtime' ensemble play with a swinging energy and rhythmic lightness that makes the music shimmer and shimmy.

It takes a good three hours to work out all these stories on the gigantic historical stage Doctorow has created, but the show is worth every minute of your time.

2/25/2005

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