Ragtime: From Page to Stage

"Ragtime" is one of my favorite musicals ever, so when I learned I was going to be reading the novel Ragtime, which the show is based on, I became ecstatic. I love going back to the original, seeing how the playwrights and lyricists incorporated things from the musical's origin into the musical. Like the "Angry Dance" in "Billy Elliot" or placing a Time Dragon above the stage for "Wicked." A couple years ago, when I played Oliver in a CUTC performance of "Oliver," I read Oliver Twist, and compared the novel I was reading to the play I was performing. I think that's exactly what I'm going to do with Ragtime here on this blog. Every time I find a part of the book that I know relates to a corresponding song in "Ragtime," I will post the song and discuss how it is the same, different, or a mixture of both to the book; kind of a comparison. I will be seeing how it is that someone was able to take words on a page and make them sing on a stage. One thing to note in advance about the musical is that time passes differently than in the novel. Events occur at the same time, instead of being years apart. In some cases, time pass in several seconds during a song. In a sense, the musical floats outside of time.

To start with, we have the opening number. Here's a video of part of the opening being performed on the Tony Awards by the original Broadway cast, and yes that is a young Lea Michele playing Tateh's daughter. I will also include a video of the entire song, just so you can get the full effect and you can be introduced into every single character, even some who haven't appeared in the book yet! (I keep reading, waiting for them to appear, anticipating their entrance.)

To begin with, the show starts off the same way the novel does, "In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York...and it seemed for some years thereafter that all their days would be warm and fair," only the show has the Little Boy, who is given the name Edgar, introduce us to the world of "Ragtime."

We're then introduced to the, well, "white" chorus; the middle class inhabitants of New Rochelle singing about how easy life is. In the full song, we're introduced to all the specific characters. We have Father speaking about his fireworks factory and how he is "something of an amateur explorer." You'll notice that these descriptions of the characters are less racy than they are in the book. Mother's description of herself is very light, very simple, and Younger Brother hardly mentions Evelyn!

Grandfather just cracks me up. "He was thoroughly irritated by everything."

Throughout the song, we have great allusions to the novel, from taking complete sentences to phrases, such as the mention of "ladies with parasols, fellows with tennis balls," and the line "there were gazebos and there were no Negroes." The actual line from the novel comes later.

And as soon as the Negroes are alluded to, they appear on the stage with a passion and a fire that you don't see in the stiff middle-class people of New Rochelle dressed all in white. Right away, we're introduced to Coalhouse Walker Jr., and to Sarah. Their relationship is much more prominent and explored in the musical. Here's where the line, "There were no Negroes [and] there were no immigrants" comes in, and with it, the immigrants.

Now, what's interesting to note is that Tateh's wife does not appear in the musical at all. Later in the show, Tateh asks his daughter what to tell people if they ask where her mother is. She is to respond, "Dead." In the book, it goes into an explanation concerning what Tateh's wife has to do to survive and make money in America, but the musical never touches on that. She is dead before Tateh and his Little Girl even reach the shores of America.

These following introductions aren't shown in the video from the Tony Awards, however you can see the characters standing around the stage, and I will point them out. Now here comes Houdini! Complete with his own theme, "Harry Houdini, master escapist, master of getting free!" With his appearance, we have an allusion to the moment where Houdini runs into the family, and especially the Little Boy. The Little Boy and Houdini have more of a connected relationship in the musical. After all, it is the Little Boy who tells Houdini to "warn the Duke."

Now the line, "Certain men make a country great. They can't help it," and the reference to the "American pyramid" and how J.P Morgan and Henry Ford were "like Pharoahs reincarnate," makes much more sense to me. It's a very clever nudge at J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford's belief in reincarnation. I had never caught that before. And of course, once you have great men like these introduced, who else could come next but the "radical anarchist Emma Goldman." Her role in the musical is smaller than it is in the novel. From one great woman to the next, we're then introduced to Evelyn Nesbit. Now, Evelyn Nesbit is a very different character in the musical. She's much flightier, much more self-centered. Everything is about her. The whole trial is like a vaudeville show for her. In the musical, she loves it because it gives her publicity. I just see two completely different Evelyns here. But I'll go more into that later, when I post Evelyn's song, "Crime of the Century."

Ok. One of my favorite moments ever. "Her husband the eccentric millionare Harry K. Thaw....WAS A VIOLENT MAN!!!!" Followed by one of my favorite lines in the entire show, that I was happy to see in the novel, "And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906, and there were ninety-four years to go!"

Now, it's at this point in the video of the performance that the three separate groups, the whites, the Negroes, and the immigrants all come together. They're interspersed among one another, dancing and singing to the joyous tune of their time. But you can see, it doesn't last for very long. Once they notice where they are and who they're by, everyone quickly scurries about, trying to get back to their own group. I love the moment at 2:31 in the performance video where Mother, Tateh and his Little Girl, and Coalhouse Walker all meet, with the Little Boy just sitting there watching. You can see how they are all going to end up meeting and interacting, though at the beginning it's a frightening, and almost wrong, notion. Very interesting. As each person is led back to their respective groups, we have an excellent moment in choreography where the groups walk around the stage together as one, glaring at the other two groups, and recoiling when they run into one another. And the Little Boy just sits and watches it, taking it all in. (In some ways, the musical is about how the story of "Ragtime" impacts the Little Boy.) It's really wonderful and very well done. Really sets the scene of how "Ragtime" begins.

At 3:19 in the performance video, you can see J.P. Morgan standing between Evelyn Nesbit and Booker T. Washington, and then at 3:24 you can plainly see Emma Goldman, and I believe she's standing by Henry Ford, but I'm not quite sure. It's interesting to see the physical descriptions come to life. I especially like the way J.P. Morgan and Emma Goldman are costumed. I think it fits both their personalities, characters, and descriptions very well.

This ending is just gorgeous and brilliantly sets up for the rest of the show. I mean, it is a prologue, after all. It is supposed to introduce the show, and I think it does an excellent job of getting across the novel's main points as well right from the start. You have introductions of everybody, the three different groups, the main characters meeting, but not quite interacting, and dramatic and foreboding lyrics like, "It was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning! In riches and rags and in rythem and rhyme, the people called it ragtime," set to dramatic music that builds. Now this is an important line to keep in mind, because it will follow us throughout the play, and especially to Coalhouse Walker.

I honestly don't think there could be a better introduction to the show. It's just done so beautifully, and I love seeing all the connections back towards the novel. I mean, what a way to start out. I've had this song running through my head as we've been reading, and especially when I first started the book. I could just hear the Little Boy speaking, "In 1902 Father built a house..." I'm hoping through my blog I'll be able to share with you the music I'm hearing behind the literature, and all the wonderful and interesting things and feelings I learn and feel from it.

This is "Ragtime," from page to stage.