Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Review

'Ragtime' has its ups and downs

The community theater production has strong lead roles, but the supporting cast is inconsistent.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published June 22, 2005

TAMPA - Ragtime has always been problematic, more historical pageant than musical theater, but at least its flaws are interesting. Community theater companies rarely venture beyond the tried and true, and M.A.D. Theatre of Tampa deserves credit for mounting this ambitious production at the University of South Florida's Theatre 1.

Still, for all the worthy intentions and some strong performances, it remains frustratingly uneven. Time after time, the excellent score (music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens) is undermined by book writer Terrence McNally's unwieldy effort to transform the collagelike narrative of E.L. Doctorow's novel into song and dance and drama.

Set in the early 1900s, the musical tells the interlocking stories of a fireworks manufacturer and his family in New Rochelle, N.Y.; ragtime pianist turned revolutionary Coalhouse Walker Jr., his wife and child; and a Jewish immigrant, Tateh, and his daughter, whose odyssey takes them from Latvia to the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Lawrence, Mass., to Hollywood.

These three groups hold interest pretty well, but the same can't be said for the historical figures who troop in and out: Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Houdini and others. In stiff cameos, they stand for ideas, not living characters, and whenever one of them steps up to sing or speechify, the show dies.

Let's face it, trying to fashion a musical about the decline and fall of the WASP patriarchy in 20th century America is a tall order.

To cover all its history, Ragtime is ingeniously structured, flowing from big choruses to solos to small ensemble numbers and back again in relatively smooth fashion, but that ingenuity feels exhausting over more than three hours, including intermission.

In general, the M.A.D. staging has good work from the leading actors, less good from the supporting ones. On opening night, Frank Edmondson (one of several cast members from Busch Gardens' Katonga) was notably fine as Coalhouse, with a rich, flexible baritone in showstoppers like New Music and Make Them Hear You. Emily Gale Howell, playing Mother, and Jerry Slutzky's Tateh blended beautifully in the duet Our Children. Charleene Closshey had her moments as Evelyn Nesbit, a kewpie-doll sexpot on a swing.

Director Justyn Wade Dansby and choreographer Elizabeth Robins Edelson did a nice job with Ragtime, especially the big chorus and dance scenes, proving there is strength in numbers. Intimate, dialogue-driven scenes were less effective. G. Frank Meekins conducted the 21-piece orchestra without too much out-of-tune playing. A highlight of the production is Coalhouse's splendid Model T Ford.

M.A.D. plans another bold choice for its 2005-06 season opener in the fall: The Wild Party, the Michael John LaChiusa musical that flopped on Broadway a few years ago but dealt with adult themes in a vivid way. Who said community theater had to be dull?

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 01:08:17]