Ragtime
Subject: Quicktake - "Ragtime", lyrics & music - Ahrens & Flaherty; book by McNally, adapted from the novel by E.L.Doctrow
Date: Tues, May 2, 7:07 AM
Quicktake on RAGTIME
The New Rep is finishing up their inaugural season at the Arsenal Center for the Arts with an impressive mounting of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's award-winning music drama, "Ragtime". The book was adapted by multiple-Tony winner Terrence McNally from E.L.Doctrow's lauded panoramic historical novel. The excellent cast, New Rep's largest to date, is anchored by IRNE Award winner Leigh Barrett as Mother in a role which uses all her best talents. She's partnered by veteran music theatre performer Peter Edmund Haydu as Father, last seen locally in the New Rep's "Christmas Carol" as Marley et al. The more romantic duo of Coalhouse Walker Jr., the ragtime piano player from Harlem and his girl, Sarah, are played by NYU Vocal performance grad Michael E. Parent, who's done the role in NYC, and Stephanie Umoh, a BosCon BFA candidate. Both bring charm and power to their roles. Representing the third element in "Ragtime"'s melting pot, singer and comedian Robert Saoud has his most fulfilling role in a long time as Tateh, the Lativian emigre artist who starts out ragged selling silhouettes on the street in front of a tenement on the lower East Side and winds up in California making silent movies for the nickolodeons, all for his motherless daughter.
Primary casting for rest of the ensemble has June Babolan as anarchist Emma Goldman, Dee Crawford as the Gospel Singer, Aimee Doherty as showgirl Evelyn Nesbit, Paul D. Farwell as firechief Willie Conklin, Frank Gayton as Henry Ford, Paul Giragos as Harry Houdini, Austin Lesch as Mother's Younger Brother, big Bill Molnar as financier J.P. Morgan, Sophie Rich as Tateh's daughter, and Samuel A Wartenberg as Mother's young son. All these singers, dancers, and scene shifters join as many other members of cast in various large numbers as director Rick Lombardo and choreographer Kelli Edwards meld them into a seamless ensemble. The entire company numbers more than thirty, not counting appropriately attired music director Todd. C. Gordon visibly conducting from a keyboard his seven member orchestra on a bandstand hovering over backstage left.
Audiences who've experienced this classic American music drama downtown in one of the barns, or even in one of several community productions, such as Footlight's IRNE winning effort, have a chance to get close-up and involved in another excellent New Rep musical effort. Most members of the ensemble plays several parts in this panorama of turn of the century American in and around New York, all are firmly in period and place under Lombardo's skilled direction. Janie E. Howland's movable set pieces form and reform the playing areas, Francis Nelson McSherry and Molly Trainer deserve their equal billing for a set of superb costumes and many, many changes, and Dorian Des Lauriers' black and white (mostly) projections expand the scope of various scenes. "Ragtime" is a glorious end to a very impressive first season in Watertown for the new New Rep in its 21st year.
"Ragtime", lyrics & music - Ahrens & Flaherty; book by McNally, Dates
New Repertory Theatre at Arsenal Center for the Arts
123 Arsenal St. Watertown, (617) 923 - 8487
New Repertory Theatre
posted by will at 2:51 PM
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