Ragtime (5+*)

When I last saw Ragtime, the 20th century was drawing to a close; despite the musical's ending--which reflected the cancerous horrors of racism--it seemed like a celebration of melting pot America, soon validated by the joyous election of Barrack Obama in 2008.

This afternoon, with the nation's semiquincentennial less than a week away, it felt more like an elegy for what might have been, through no fault of the rousing production, but because our country seems so unmoored from the authentic family values that the show embraces in its final moments.

Diverse voices are raised in melodious song from the opening number and director Lear DeBessonet takes full advantage of the Vivian Beaumont's revolving stage to blend a huge cast that represents the 1906 demographics of the United States.  We're at the dawn of America's love affair with the automobile and ragtime provides the new century's soundtrack.  

Book writer Terrence McNally mostly dispenses with the cynicism of E.L. Doctorow's 1975 classic novel, which featured historical figures as supporting players, an unusual conceit at the time.  The first "crime of the century" (involving the life of an earlier, less talented showgirl named Evelyn Nesbit) and the escape artistry of Harry Houdini dominate the front pages. Emma Goldman rabble rouses on behalf of the poor, and Booker T. Washington publicly embraces a "separate but equal" strategy to free his people from discrimination only to have it backfire. A ruthless J.P. Morgan embodies the Gilded Age's rapacious one percent.  

Archetypal characters including an upper class white woman, a Jewish immigrant and a young Black father are jockeying to live their best lives on a heavily stylized set dressed just enough to give the audience a sense of where the story takes place while allowing the always soaring score, occasionally operatic in its intensity, to take center stage. The cast is uniformly excellent but John Clay III, the Sunday matinee understudy, deserves special mention for his thrilling performance as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., the ragtime pianist whose success and oppression literally drives the tragic story. Imagine Sidney Poitier singing like Luciano Pavarotti with a slight vibrato and you'll understand why he left me brimming with tears more than once.