If you ask me: Ragtime at Goodspeed Musicals
By Tom Holehan
Connecticut Critics Circle
Audiences will experience a splendid revival of Ragtime currently playing at Goodspeed Musicals. The 1998 Broadway hit, with book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, is timelier than ever at the East Haddam theatre.
Based on E. L. Doctorow’s acclaimed bestseller, Ragtime is set during 1902-1915 in and around New York City where we meet a wealthy New Rochelle family, a pair of Jewish immigrants via Ellis Island and the African-American community in Harlem. These three groups cross paths with each other and several notables of the period including anarchist Emma Goldman, vaudeville queen Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Washington, Henry Ford and Harry Houdini among many others. The central character is Harlem pianist Coalhouse Walker (a commanding Michael Wordly) whose purchase of a new Model T Ford sets a number of racially charged events in motion. It all makes for a powerhouse musical, one of the great ones from the 1990s.
On a dramatic, multi-tiered set designed by Emmie Finckel and effectively lit by Charlie Morrison, the three-hour musical covers a lot of ground as themes of racism, privilege and immigration provide breathless conflict. Despite Goodspeed’s intimate stage, director Christopher D. Betts does a masterful job coordinating over three dozen actors coming and going. This is evident immediately with the musical’s grand prologue, which introduces all the main players in glorious song and full voice. The audience is hooked immediately.
The musical’s wonderful score is in able hands with Music Director Adam Souza and his superb orchestra. With few exceptions, the singing voices deliver the goods, especially Wordly, Edward Watts and Mamie Parris as the upper-crust parents and David R. Gordon as Tateh, the immigrant. In the plum role of Sarah, the mother of Coalhouse’s baby son, Brennyn Lark is a stunning presence but is rather shrill in her high notes. I also didn’t appreciate some of the vocal gymnastics she employed in “Your Daddy’s Son” and “Wheels of a Dream.” These songs need no fussing to make them soar.
Wordly and the thrilling ensemble bring down the house at the close of act one with the gospel-inspired, “Till We Reach that Day,” and Parris nearly achieves the same effect with the haunting “Back to Before” in act two. Watts’ beautiful baritone is well represented with “Journey On.”
In other roles, Blair Goldberg is a fiery Emma Goldman and Mia Gerachis has fun as Evelyn Nesbit, though her signature line, “Whee!,” doesn’t really register like it should. As the youngest member of the cast, Sawyer Delaney is appealing as a pint-sized Greek chorus, but I wish his diction wasn’t so blurry. Stephanie Bahniuk’s excellent costume design provides a range of period perfection for the entire cast.
A new production of “Ragtime” is already scheduled for revival on Broadway next fall. It’s a musical that will always be timeless, always worth seeing. This revival is no exception.
Ragtime continues at Goodspeed Musicals, 5 Main Street, East Haddam, Connecticut through June 15. For further information visit: www.goodspeed.org or call the box office at: 860.873.8668.
Tom Holehan is one of the founders of the Connecticut Critics Circle, a frequent contributor to WPKN Radio’s “State of the Arts” program and the Stratford Crier and Artistic Director of Stratford’s Square One Theatre Company. He welcomes comments at: tholehan@yahoo.com. His reviews and other theatre information can be found on the Connecticut Critics Circle website: www.ctcritics.org.
