Ragtime

What a production. What a thrill. What an upwelling of emotion. So sad to see it close so soon.

This is my second, and last, viewing of Ragtime, the fabulous new production that played to critical praise. Unfortunately this is closing weekend. Fortunately closing weekedn was suppose to be last week; I had tickets to this week's performance with my dad and his cousin. I rushed to buy replacement tickets only to get notification a day later that they extended shows through our original ticket weekend so now I had tickets to two shows for Saturday matinee performances - ugh! Luckily I was able to switch the other tickets to the evening. The main reason Dad was coming to New York was to see Ragtime, his favorite Broadway musical, live. We were back in business. Phew! I'd been raving about the production so I'm glad all the ups and downs of "it's canceled, it's extended" resulted in him getting to see this truly magical production.

I saw it in previews and loved the staging and many of the performances. The choreography of the opening number, where the three classes start out singing their individual refrains and end up intermingles, jumbled together, was beautiful. I also love the resonating sound and power of the whole chorus singing together. I'm not sure if they gave more to this performance, the third to last they'd give, but it sounded and felt marvelously moving. The music and singing was just powerful.

And I really enjoyed the very industrial framing used to define the action. With little or no set piece movements, only props and furniture shifting here and there, the elemental steel lines served as a grid on a piece of blank paper, allowing the imagination to fill in the pieces ... of a house, a new car, an assembly hall, a seashore. The costumes definitely help in this illusion, parasols, rags, straw hats, shawls, it all added texture, romance, and realism to the time period.

The crowd was enthusiastic beyond decorum up in my section. This may had to do with the multiple rows of high schoolers right behind me. At times I didn't mind the whistling and hooting but I did mind the bag crinkling and talking during the performances. Such is life - you get the good and the bad intertwined.

So a great musical revival closes way too soon. I was lucky to catch it. Dad gave it a 10 out of 10. Therese was actually singing some of the tunes afterward, still captivated by it all. Good theater does that ... linger, before becoming a fond memory and then a recollection of being lucky to have seen and expereinced something so alive, so engaging, so good. And we were there.