Review: Ragtime at New York City Center Shows Us America

These are not normal times, goes the cliché — repeated like a daily prayer for roughly the past decade as we look aghast at our national politics. But what really is normal in America, a land of radicals and reactionaries, tycoons and terrorists, shameless attention-seekers and the public that cannot get enough of them? People come and go so quickly here, and there’s always a new crop of immigrants blown in on a twister, eager to follow that golden road to their dreams.

Ragtime, the musical by Stephen Flaherty (music), Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), and the late Terrence McNally (book), is not the story of a period of extraordinary change and turbulence, because constant disruption is ordinary in the United States. But it is a great American musical — perhaps the most comprehensive reflection of our national character ever conveyed in that form — now receiving an excellent concert staging at New York City Center.

Based on E.L. Doctorow’s sprawling novel, it begins in 1906 with wealthy industrialist and amateur explorer Father (Colin Donnell), Mother (Caissie Levy), the Little Boy (Matthew Lamb), Grandfather (Tom Nellis), and Mother’s Younger Brother (Ben Levi Ross) settled in New Rochelle, safely insulated, so they tell us, from Black people and immigrants. But such a declaration in the opening number of a musical is an obvious challenge, and soon both groups enter their lily-white lives.

It happens when Mother discovers a baby in her garden, which has been abandoned by Sarah (Nichelle Lewis), a servant at a neighboring house. While Father is away on an expedition to the North Pole, Mother takes in both Sarah and her child. This soon attracts regular visits from the baby’s father, a talented pianist named Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Joshua Henry). Coalhouse has big dreams for his little family, but having abandoned Sarah once, can he get her to trust him again? And should either of them trust America?

Jewish Latvian immigrant Tateh (Brandon Uranowitz) has a similar crisis of faith when he arrives in the land of opportunity and discovers that no one is buying the silhouettes he is selling. As his Little Girl (Tabitha Lawing) becomes sick and hungry, he is forced to take work in a textile mill. Real-life social activist Emma Goldman (Shaina Taub, impressively convincing us that the leftist firebrand was actually a happy warrior) urges him to join the organized labor movement — a possible path forward or a ticket straight to jail and deportation.

McNally’s complex yet surprisingly efficient book is dotted with minor characters like J.P. Morgan (John Rapson), Henry Ford (Jeff Kready), and Booker T. Washington (John Clay III). Stephanie Styles delivers a hilarious performance as Evelyn Nesbit, while Rodd Cyrus makes a haunting, somewhat melancholic Harry Houdini.

All of this is fascinating for a history dork like me, but for devotees of musical theater the real draw is hearing the very best Ahrens and Flaherty score sung by top-tier Broadway talent. Henry gave me chills multiple times with his rich baritone, which has the power to both seduce and shake you to your core. Lewis matches his intensity in an unforgettable rendition of “Wheels of a Dream.” I half expected them to take flight on the final note.

Ahrens’s lyrics are especially clear in Levy’s mouth, the demure expression on which barely conceals a deep unhappiness. And we understand why from Donnell’s portrayal of Father, a man encased in permafrost that only seems to melt when he is singing (quite beautifully). Uranowitz captures both the exuberance and rage of Tateh, delivering a transcendent moment of musical theater bliss with “Gliding.”

Ragtime really is the perfect candidate for the City Center treatment with its symphonic score, packed with gutsy brass, contemplative woodwinds, and swelling strings. We hear America in every cymbal crash and timpani roll (lavish orchestrations by William David Brohn) and it glistens under the steady baton of music director James Moore.

Lear deBessonet (who helmed the most recent Broadway revivals of Into the Woods and Once Upon a Mattress, both of which originated at City Center) foregrounds the music with her less-is-more concert staging. Ellenore Scott’s choreography conjures specific images in the simplest movements, none of which are encumbered by Linda Cho’s gorgeously detailed period costumes. DeBessonet makes good use of door frames and moving staircases (set by David Rockwell) as a wall of LED light (lighting by Adam Honoré) transforms the stage and augments the dramatic tension. Most importantly, we can hear every lyric thanks to the precise sound design of Kai Harada. And that’s important, because I’ve seen this musical multiple times and I always walk away hearing something new yet eerily familiar.

There is an impulse to declare Ragtime dated — the bored housewife, the heartbroken revolutionary, the immigrant success story. What does any of it have to do with us here in 2024? But if we can manage to listen beyond the deafening narcissism of the present, we will hear a world that sounds startlingly like our own — filled with dreams and disappointments that resonate across centuries. Bring it to Broadway, stat!