RAGTIME Reviews
by Robert Diamond - November 15, 2009
At the dawn of a new century, everything is changing... and anything is possible. Direct from a sold-out extended run at the Kennedy Center, RAGTIME The Musical returns to Broadway in an new production. Set in the volatile melting pot of turn-of-the-century New York, RAGTIME weaves together three distinctly American tales -- that of a stifled suburban mother, an inventive Jewish immigrant and a daring young Harlem musician -- united by their courage, compassion and belief in the promise of the future. Their compelling stories intertwine to form a rich tapestry of hopes and dreams, struggles and triumphs, rhythm and rhyme, set to an epic, Tony Award-winning score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens. A colossal stage show based on the classic E. L. Doctorow novel, RAGTIME also features a Tony Award-winning book by Terrence McNally, direction and choreography by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, a majestic 28-piece orchestra and a vibrant cast of 40.
David Rooney, Variety: "No word has been more bandied about in American life the past two years than change. And no show investigates the nuances of that word as it relates to the American Dream -- conveying hope, opportunity and success, but also the ugly flipside of pain, division, confusion and violence -- more masterfully than "Ragtime." The 1997 musical not only feels trenchant and timely, but its multistrand story is delivered with fresh clarity and emotional immediacy in director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge's elegant revival, transferring to Broadway from D.C.'s Kennedy Center, where it originated in April. This is big-brain, bold-strokes musical-theater storytelling at its most vibrant."
Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "Ragtime" benefits from this less-is-more approach, but only to a degree. The show is hardly one of Sondheimesque complexity. Terrence McNally's script and Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens's songs have a way of turning the shifting historical flux of Doctorow's novel into carefully diagrammed flow charts. Characters who remain mysteries to themselves in the novel are here allowed moments of self-analysis and self-explanation that Dr. Phil might applaud. So to present a bare-bones "Ragtime" courts the danger of revealing how bare them bones are."
Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "It also sets the bar very high for what is to follow at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre, where a respectful, recalibrated revival of the musical opened Sunday. If nothing else quite reaches that joyous proclamation of theatricality, so be it. This is a musical that can't be faulted for its overabundant ambition or its often soaring score even as it sometimes stumbles over its heart-on-sleeve earnestness."
Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "But those who plan to see the theatrical version, now in revival (***½ out of four) at the Neil Simon Theatre, are advised to put away their thinking caps and bring their hankies. As a work of social commentary, Ragtime, introduced on Broadway in 1998, is hokey and pedantic, much like that other, plodding musical adaptation of historical fiction, Les Misèrables."
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